The Double Doo-Doo Saga
by Anna-mathe
Summary: Zorak takes on Sonic the Hedgehog, the Chaotix, and the Guardians!
1. Mutant Plants and Alien Invasions

Double Doo-Doo Saga

Double Doo-Doo Saga

Part one:

Mutant Plants and Alien Ivasions

Written by Anna-mathe with help from her friend Gloria.

Knuckles the Echidna and related characters are property of Sega and Archie Comics.

Zorak and related characters are property of someone else.

Fish and the intelligent plants (but not the fungus) are property of myself.

Colonel Pepsi is property of Gloria.

Zorak looked over at Space Ghost, who was talking in his sleep again. He looked at Brak, who was snoring loudly.

_Finally! Now's my chance!_

Quietly stepping out of his prison pod, he tip-toed out past both of them and out to the hangar. The Phantom Cruiser was about to go on a new kind of cruise.

Vector was having some problems. If he wasn't so worried about his reputation, he probably would've sought professional help immediately, but his pride stopped him. No, he'd deal with this on his own.

He had poison ivy.

This was not ordinary poison ivy. He'd been taking a short cut through the Mushroom Zone when he'd accidentally encountered the stuff. Unlike normal poison ivy, each leaf was at least a foot in width, most bigger, and it was growing up the sides of the giant mushrooms. It had been pretty much impossible to get through without coming into contact with it at least once, even though the sight of it made his skin crawl.

_Spooky. Just spooky stuff. Eeeeeeew!_

And as the size of the leaves had magnified, so had the size of the itching, until the point where he was running around like a maniac screaming bloody murder. 

The croc wasn't the only one to have discovered the giant poison ivy. Of course, the mushrooms themselves weren't very thrilled with the stuff, but while they considered it a minor inconvenience, others considered it a threat to Island Security.

"Where did it come from?" Sabre asked Locke from within Haven's secret facilities. "I mean, mutations of that proportion don't appear over night."

"I do have a guess as to where they came from," Locke answered with a sour expression.

"Do tell, my son."

"For years, Robotnik's factories were spurting all sorts of chemicals into the air and atmosphere. I think the most logical explanation is that some sort of pollution has been working away at the vegetation for years, and signs of it are just now beginning to show."

"But should that be the case," Sabre said after Locke finished his explanation, "there could be other forms of similar mutations all over the Island."

"All over the _planet,_ you mean."

"How are the mushrooms taking it?"

"They're not happy, but they're dealing with it pretty well."

"Well, why don't you see if they'll do something along the lines of clearing out our hostile vegetation before it mutates any further?"

"Because, knowing them, they'd probably consider it murder."

"Oh. Yeah."

Between the four of them, Knuckles and the other Chaotix had found just about every itch remedy in existence for Vector, but nothing seemed to be helping his state any. The poor guy was about to go ballistic with agony.

"Uh, do you think maybe a doctor could do something about it?" Charmy suggested.

"Heck no!" Vector adamantly insisted. "I refuse to let any of those overpaid quacks go poking all over me!"

Knuckles crossed his arms and glared at Vector appraisingly.

"Well, fine then, if you wanna stay that way . . . "

"Don't you go pullin' that reverse psychology stuff on me, man!"

"Huh? What're you talking about?"

"Don't even!!"

"What?!"

Vector threw his arms up in defeat.

"Fine, fine! Where's the nearest Stat-care?"

"Er, if you say so."

Locke had been right to assume that not only the Floating Island was having sudden trouble with plant life. 

"You're telling me that plants have been assaulting people?!" King Acorn asked in surprise/disgust.

"Yes, sir!" Geoffery replied, still amazed himself. "Just within the eastern border of the Great Forest. I was personally attacked by a giant wildflower while looking into the matter"

"Exactly what matter had you been looking into?"

"Well, we've been getting some very strange reports of unusually large plant growth in certain areas all over the planet. That was the closest sight, so I thought it couldn't hurt to check it out." Geoffery rubbed the large bump on his head. "But it actually hurt quite a lot."

"Mm hm. And, er, how dangerous are these giant plants?"

"It's hard to say. It depends on how angry one makes them."

"And how does one make a giant plant angry?"

"Simple. Step on one of their friends."

The king shook his head.

"This is insane. So you're telling me that first, we get giant plants. Next, those giant plants start attacking people?"

"Yes, sir! They appear to have great intelligence!"

King Acorn twiddled his thumbs for a moment.

"Until now, the only known intelligent plant life has been the Brobdingnagian Fungi on the Floating Island."

Geoffery blinked.

"Giant mushrooms?"

"Yes, giant mushrooms. I recommend you see what they have to say on these new matters."

"Yes, sir, I'll get on it right away."

Light years away, Zorak was having the time of his life, zooming thorugh solar systems in the stolen Phantom Cruiser.

"Ha ha! Finally! I'm free of that dork, Space Ghost, and Brak, the disgrace to space criminals everywhere! Now to get back to my plans of _UNIVERSAL CONQUEST!!_ Hoohoohahaha!"

Dr. Loony was astounded. He'd never seen a case of poison ivy like this in all the years he'd been a doctor.

"Well, how many times have you run into giant poison ivy plants?" Vector grumbled when the doctor said so.

"I do have a solution to all your problems," Dr. Loony said.

"What's that?"

Without a word, the doctor conked Vector up side of the head and knocked him out cold, much to the astonishment of Knuckles and the other Chaotix.

"Hey, someone had to put him out of his misery!" Loony said by way of excuse.

"Excuse me?!" Espio exclaimed. "You just bashed in his brains!" _Hypothetical brains, but brains._

"So?"

"So," Mighty replied, "don't expect us to pay for this visit now!" He turned to the others. "Okay, we might as well get outta here. But who wants the honor of waking up Sleeping Beauty over there?"

"Uuuuuuh, on second thought, it couldn't hurt to leave him out for a _little_ longer," Knuckles replied.

"Uh oh," Locke muttered under his breath. Sabre had gone to get some coffee. Locke was still analizing the giant poison ivy with growing interest, until the latest development. This was not good. Not good at all. He pushed a button, and Constable Remington's face appeared in a corner of the screen.

"Yes?" he asked.

"I need you to get in touch with Knuckles and the Chaotix and send them out to the Mushroom Zone immediately."

Remington scratched his head.

"Vector was out there before. He came back with the worst case of poison ivy ever recorded. Said something about mutant plants."

"Mutated poison ivy. I know. However, things have just gotten a bit more serious."

"Oh?"

"Yes. The plants seem to have achieved sentience."

Remington blinked in disbelief.

"Intelligent poison ivy?!"

"Apparently."

"Well well. Here's a twist." Remington gulped, considering what that could end up meaning. "I'll let them know. Um, do you know what caused this?"

"I have an idea. I'll let you know when I'm sure. Locke out." And Locke cut off the contact before the Constable asked any more questions. 

Vector woke up, and he wasn't very happy.

Upon opening his eyes, he promptly stated: "Ow!"

"Sorry about that," Knuckles told him. "Dr. Loony got overexcited."

"So I noticed. Hey!"

"What?" the others chorused.

"The itching stopped!"

Before they could figure out just how on Mobius _that_ had happened, Remington drove up beside them in his scooter-vehicle.

"Hey, guys, there's something I think you should know about . . . "

Zorak landed on his home planet.

"Hey, Zorak!" said a mantis named Colonel Pepsi. 

"Hi, how's it goin'? YOU BIG DOPE!!!!! You left the refridgerator door open!!!"

"Uh, whoops!"

Zorak shook his head. "Crud. You mean the fridge has been open the whole time I was stuck with that geek, Space Ghost?!"

Colonel Pepsi shrugged.

"Yeah, guess so. Whoops."

Zorak growled.

"Fine! Now you have to pay the electric bill, fool!"

"No!!! Not that!!!! ANYTHING but _THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_" 

"Yes! That! Hoohoohoohaha!"

Colonel Pepsi began to cry.

"Oh, cut that out. So what devices have you come up with for me? Anything delightfully evil?"

"Well, we made this funky ray gun that turns people, or anyting else for that matter, into fuzzy pink giraffes with no heads."

Zorak blinked.

"Euh, okay."

"Oh my goodness!!!!" Mighty exclaimed.

A three meter wide poison ivy leaf turned and faced him, face to face. Then it opened one huge eyeball and stared at him. 

Mighty stared back until he began to feel queazy. Then Knuckles grabbed his arm and dragged him on just before he threw up.

"Be careful," Knux warned the Chaotix. "Who knows _what_ these things can do."

He should have kept his mouth shut. The moment those words were out of his mouth, every poison ivy plant within hearing range turned and stared at him. Then they began to growl.

Espio promptly disappeared, and Charmy yelped and looked for a place to hide. Vector groaned, "Oh, not again!!!" while Knuckles and Mighty just sorta stood there.

A particularly large one seemed to be in charge.

"Hey, who're you callin' things?!" it demanded, pulling its roots away from the mushrooms (who were looking mildly surprised) and slowly approaching the 5 of them.

"Um, you, I think," Knuckles replied sarcastically. "I mean, what do you expect me to call giant poison ivy plants that appear overnight?"

"Why not call us . . . your worst nightmare?!?!?!?!?!?!?!" it suggested, jumping at them with incredible speed, for a plant.

"AHH! RUN!!!!" Vector yelled at the top of his lungs. "We need major weedkiller here!!!"

"Vector, don't - " Knuckles warned, quickly jumping out of the ivy's path along with the others.

Before he could finish his warning, however, the ivy caught up with the retreating croc and gobbled him up.

"Oh my gosh! He killed Vector!!!" Charmy squeaked in horror.

"You blockhead!!" Mighty shouted. 

"Spit him up right now!" Knuckles ordered.

"On whose authority?" Ivy demanded.

"Mine! Guardian of the Floating - " He was cut off as he got eaten by Ivy2 that had snuck up from behind.

"Oh great!!" Mighty exclaimed. "Hey, man, what's your game? Why are you eating everyone?"

"Because your kind have been destroying our kind for as long as you've existed! Now it's time for . . .

Revenge

of the

Giant Mutant Poison Ivy

of **_Doom_**

"Um . . . well, why shouldn't we stomp you out?" Mighty demanded, trying to word his way out of this. "After all . . . you make us itch! Aren't we entitled to retaliate?"

"Let me think. No. Actually," Ivy corrected himself, "you are. Of course, in that light, so are we!!"

Mighty had been slowly working his way back to the end of the Zone, and could probably make a clean break for it now, and Charmy was clinging to his neck. However, he was starting to get into this.

"Oh yeah? Well, I'll keep that in mind when I get some mutant powers of my own and we can call this a fair fight!"

"What's so unfair? It's no more unfair than when you stomp out plant life with no intelligence!"

"If plants were meant to have intelligence, they would have been born with brains!!!"

Ivy took a deep breath and pulled himself to his full height.

The mushrooms began placing bets.

Mighty growled, but before he could do anything more than growl, an unseen hand grabbed him and dragged him off. Mighty, surprised, went along.

Espio appeared. 

"One of these days, you're not going to have me around to keep you from doing something stupid!" he warned.

"Yeah, fine. So now what? Those darn plants just ate Vector and Knux!"

"Yeah, I noticed. I agree with Vector. Let's go get us some mega weedkiller."

On their way back to Echidnaopolis, they ran into Geoffery.

"Hey, mates!" he greeted them. "You know where I might find Knuckes?"

"Back there," Espio replied, pointing in the direction they'd come from. "Inside the stomach of some giant mutant poison ivy."

"Giant mutant poison ivy?"

"You got it, Bubba," Mighty confirmed. "It ate him, and Vector, too."

"Oh. Well, where can I find some Brobd-brobi- . . . giant mushrooms?"

"Oh, they're with the giant poison ivy," Charmy replied.

"Oh." Geoffery thought about that one.

"Say, what're you doin' here, anyway?" Espio asked. "I thought you had a day job."

"Never. But intelligent plant life has been sprouting up all over Mobius, and most of it is hostile."

"You don't say?"

"Yes, actually. But what should we do about it?"

Espio glared at him.

"I thought you secret service types were supposed to have an answer for everything?"

"Normally, we do. But giant mutant plants are not an everyday occurance. I'd think it would be more along your line."

"Why is that?"

"Well, all this seems pretty chaotic to me!!"

"So what's the latest?" Sabre asked, returning to the Observation Room, loaded down with an awful lot of coffee.

"Well," Locke replied with a sigh, "a giant mutant poison ivy plant just swallowed your grandson."

"It ate Knuckles?"

"And Vector. Crud. This isn't going very well. And now we have the secret service prowling around."

"Oh, remind me to spread around some newspapers. Speaking of which, have you read the headlines?"

"No, what headlines?"

"Well, a notorius space-criminal named Zorak escaped from custody."

"What's his crime?"

"Trying to take over the universe." 

"Oh. Well, aren't they all?" Locke grabbed some coffee and guzzled it down. "Anyway, I think we should send the Chaotix, um, the remaining Chaotix, some help." There was a small puff of smoke and three fire ants appeared. Locke crossed his arms and leaned forward. "Hey, guys, you like to eat plants, right?"

Archimedes snorted.

"Um, no. We're ants, not caterpillars."

"Well, plants don't normally eat echidnas and crocodiles, either."

"What, did a plant eat somebody?"

"Okay, we have enough weedkiller here to destroy a rainforest," Constable Remington informed Geoffery and the Chaotix, after seeing to the situation. "Now, may I ask how you intend to get rid of all that poison ivy before - "

_"Bef_o_re what?!"_ came a loud screech. 

Startled, the group of them looked up just in time to watch Geoffery get pulverized by a giant strawberry.

"Uh oh," Mighty mumbled. "I hate strawberries . . . "

He grabbed some of the weedkiller and threw it at the strawberry, who promptly screamed and fell over, gasping for breath.

"Goodbye *gasp* *gasp* cruel *gasp* world *gasp*," it gasped, gasping. Then it died.

"Yuck!" Geoffery complained, wiping strawberry slober off his uniform. "I say, let's get rid of these things now, before things get even worse around here!"

Light years away, on the Ghost Planet, Space Ghost finally woke up.

"Wow! What a bea-utiful day!!" he said, merrily stretching out his arms. "Good morning, Brak!"

"Mornin', Space Ghost!"

"Good morning, Zorak!"

There was no answer.

"Er, Zorak, I said 'good morning'."

There was still no answer.

"Hey, bug, it's too early in the morning to be rude!"

"Uh, Space Ghost?"

"Yeah? What?!" Space Ghost snapped at Brak.

"Uh, I think ol' Zorak's flown the coop!"

"What?"

"He's gone! Take a look!"

Blinking, Space Ghost looked at the Prison Pod again. Then he blinked again.

"Gee-willikers! He's _gone_!!"

Knux opened his eyes and took a look around.

"Oh, boy. I didn't think the afterlife would be so disgusting!"

Then, after looking around some more, he realized that he wasn't quite dead!

"Oh my gosh! I'm in the plant's stomach!" _Yuck! Could this get any worse? And to top it off, I was talking to myself again!!_ He tried to move. _Oh, great. I think I'm stuck somewhere in the small intestine._ Then he thought, _Wait, do plants have intestines?_

Archimedes was outside, trying to figure out which plants had eaten who, while not making any of them mad. He'd heard Knux talking inside Ivy2.

"Hey, Knuckles! Are you in there?" he asked Ivy's stem.

Ivy2 took a step back.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" he sputtered.

From inside came Knuckles' voice.

"Archy? Is that you? Get me outta here!"

The fire ant raised an eyebrow at Ivy2.

"Don't know what I'm talking about, eh?"

Ivy2 shrugged, which looked pretty weird for a plant.

"Hmm. I wonder how that got there?"

Archy tapped his foot.

"Okay, spit up the echidna."

"What echidna?"

"_This_ echidna!!" Knuckles shouted.

Ivy2 looked uncomfortable.

"Come on, be a good mutant plant," Archy coaxed.

"Well, why should I?" Ivy2 pouted. "I see no reason why I should lose my lunch just because you tell me to!"

"Because," Archy growled, "if you don't, you're going to be in some deep dish doo-doo, dude!"

"Deep dish _what_?!"

"Spit him out before I burn you to a crisp!!"

"No!"

Archy, true to his word, breathed out a large gout of flame that left Ivy2 sizzling.

"Now what did you go and do that for?" he whined.

"I warned you!" Archy indifferently replied.

"Hey! I'm beginning to feel digested!" Knuckles yelled.

"_Now_!" Archy snapped.

Sighing, Ivy2 spit up the somewhat messy Guardian, who turned a somersault on the ground and sat up, rather unhappily.

"Yuck!" Knuckles complained, trying to wipe off saliva and other stomach residue.

"Are you okay?" Archy asked, hoping that none of his body parts had disintigrated from Ivy2's stomach acids.

"Yeah, I guess. Hey, where's Vector?"

Ivy2 crossed his leaves.

"I'm not telling."

Archy got an evil look in his eyes.

"Do you want me to go through and burn each one of you into a burning pile of salad?"

"Forget it, Archy," Knuckles cut in. "It's that one over there." And he pointed at Ivy.

"Who, me?" Ivy asked.

Ivy2 shook his giant leaves.

"Listen, why don't you both just get outta here before we start gettin' _really_ upset?"

"How about you let my pal go before _we_ get _really_ upset?" Knux replied.

The ivy plants got together in a tight circle and discussed the situation. They didn't want to end up as sizzling salad, but they didn't want to give in to an animal and a bug, either. Eating the echidna was out of the question, because the fire ant could always force them to spit him out again, and eating the fire ant was also out of the quesiton, because fire ants could teleport; everyone knew that! And so they discussed. And discussed. And discussed.

Finally, Ivy turned to face Knuckles and Archimedes.

"Okay, we'll let the croc go as long as you promise to keep all animal life away from the Mushroom Zone. We want privacy!"

"To do what?" Knux asked cynically.

Ivy waved his leaves around in a flustered manner.

"Oh . . . plant things! Now do we have a deal, or not?"

"Fine. Let him go, and we'll keep everyone away, unless you give us reason not to!" Archimedes replied before Knuckles could say anything else.

"Done!" Ivy squealed, and then he promptly hurled up Vector.

Vector looked around and promptly said: "Huh?"

"Now get outta here!" Ivy snarled.

"Fine, we're going!" Archy answered, quickly vanishing and taking Vector and Knuckles with him. "Sheesh. _Some_one needs more fiber in his diet."

Zorak, Colonel Pespi, and a mantis woman named Fish were just about to test the new ray device on a large and dangerous clump of soap scum, when the wall suddenly blew up, sending the three of them flying across the room.

"Hey! What's goin' _on_ here?!?!" Zorak demanded.

"_You_!!!"

Zorak gasped.

"That voice ----- it could only be ---"

"Yes! It is I, the universe's greatest superhero: SPACE GHOOOOOOST!!!"

Zorak grabbed the ray gun and zapped Space Ghost into a fuzzy pink giraffe with no head.

"Hoohoohoohaha! It works!" Zorak exclaimed evilly. "Now, to choose the first planet for my conquest!"

"But what about the soap scum?" Fish asked. "I mean, this is dangerous stuff!" 

"Load it into the Phantom Cruiser," Zorak told her. "Maybe it'll come in handy while we take over the planet . . . *(insert dramatic drumroll)* . . . _MOBIUS_! Hoohoohoohaha!! C'mon, let's go!"

"Wait!" Colonel Pespi insisted. "Wait just a moment, I'll be right back!"

"What, what are you doing?!" Zorak snapped.

"I'm going to close the refridgerator door!"

Archy, Knux, and Vector reappeared in EST HQ in Echidnaopolis, right where the Chaotix, Geoffery, and Constable Remington were debating over what to do.

"Hey! You guys are all right?!" Mighty joyfully exclaimed.

"Yeah, just a bit damp," Knux replied, still covered in a bit of ivy saliva.

"I know the feeling, mate," Geoffery agreed, still covered in strawberry saliva. "Did you happen to get wind of how the mushrooms feel about this situation?"

"The mushrooms? What do they have to do with this?" Vector asked, instantly confused.

"Well, until now, they've been the only intelligent plant life on Mobius, so - "

"Not correct!" Archy interrupted. "They are not plants, they are _fungus_!"

Geoffery blinked.

"So?"

"So what? I just thought I'd point that out. Just in case anyone cared."

"Well, to be quite frank, we don't," Geoffery flatly and rather rudely stated.

"Hey!" Knux snapped. "Don't be rude to Archimedes!"

"Yeah! Whaddya talkin' 'bout, fool?!" Vector demanded. "It's not like you've done anything useful around here!"

Constable Remington had been thinking. Now he came out with this thought:

"Okay, guys, so the mushrooms aren't plants. That could be important."

"How so?!" Geoffery demanded, blinking in denial.

"Simple," Remington replied in a nasty voice, just nasty enough to get the secret service agent all riled up. "We all know how protective the mushrooms are of their own kind. That's why we've been avoiding the possibility of blowing up the plants at their source. After all, the mushrooms can really be evil when they want to. However, considering that the plants are plants and not fungus, we may be able to convince them not to protect the plants, rather, to blow them up into smitherines!"

"Think they'd eat 'em?" Charmy asked.

Knuckles blew off that idea.

"Naw, they prefer to eat hedgehogs."

Ivy, the other poison ivy plants, and a large group of other sentient plantlife had gathered in the Mushroom Zone.

"Okay!" Ivy was saying. "We've got them to leave this area alone. Now we can get our forces together to _take over the world!!_!!"

"Yay," was the enthusiastic reply.

Not so very far away, in fact, right smack dab in the middle of Rainbow Valley, the Phantom Cruiser landed with a crunch.

"Hoohoohoohaha!" Zorak laughed, jumping out of the ship with his ray gun. Fish followed with another gun, and Colonel Pepsi fell off the ship carrying a dish filled with a large and dangerous clump of soap scum. "We're gonna _take over the world!!! HOOHOOHOOHAHA!!!_"

To be continued in part two . . .

Angry Chameleons and Fuzzy Pink Echidnas With No Heads


	2. Angry Chameleons and Fuzzy Pink Echidnas...

Double Doo-Doo Saga

Double Doo-Doo Saga

Part two

Angry Chameleons and Fuzzy Pink Echidnas With No Heads

Written by Anna-mathe with help from her friend, Gloria.

Knuckles the Echidna and related characters are property of Sega and Archie Comics.

Zorak and related characters are property of Cartoon Network.

Colonel Pepsi is property of Gloria.

Changeling is property of my mother.(Hi, Mommy!)

Other characters are property of myself.

It was the middle of the night of the Floating Island.

Zorak looked around Rainbow Valley and sneered.

"Hey, what's up with this?!"

"What? What's up with what?" asked Colonel Pepsi, who was juggling around his dish of soap scum.

"The sensors said that there was life in this valley! But there's no one here! There's nobody to conquer!!" Zorak stamped his feet. "We better not have come all this way for nothing! Oooo, why I'm gonna - "

"Hey, Zorak!" Fish interrupted.

"Yeah? What?"

"Sensors say that there appears to be a large population residing in that direction!" she said, pointing.

"The same sensors that said there was a large population residing where we're standing?"

"Yeah, but this is an even _bigger_ residing population!"

"Fine then! We'll go over there and conquer _them_! Hoohoohoohaha!"

The three of them took their two ray guns and one large and dangerous clump of soap scum and headed off in the direction on, you guessed it, **_Echidnaopolis!_**!!!!

As they left, Zorak mumbled, "Still, I wonder why the sensors said there was someone here. Oh well."

Once they were out of sight, a large group of chameleons who had been invisibly watching appeared out of the woodwork.

"Goll dang it!!" one of them angerly shouted. "They landed on my house!"

"Help!" came a voice from under the Phantom Cruiser. "They landed on _me_!"

They rounded up the entire chameleon population of Rainbow Valley. This meant _war_!

"And they're heading for Echidnaopolis!" pointed out a chameleon named Changeling. "They're already stuck dealing with a bunch of sentient poison ivy. Who wants to let 'em know that now we have an Alien Invasion to worry about?"

"Ha! They're not even gonna make it _to_ Echidnaopolis!" retorted another named Shadow. "Not if _I_ have anything to say about it! They landed on my house!"

"Help!" begged Shift. "I'm still stuck under this thing!!"

"Oh. Whoops!"

The chameleons dragged Shift out from under the Phantom Cruiser.

"So what do we do with this thing?" Changeling asked, gesturing to the stolen space craft.

Shadow considered.

"I suggest we take the parts and build toasters. In any case, we don't want those three mantisses to get it back."

"Why not?"

"Because we don't want them to get away until we're through with them!" He cracked his knuckles. "Say, Changeling, where's your uncle?"

"Espio? Uh, he's still dealing with the sentient poison ivy thing. So're the rest of the Chaotix."

"All righty then! Looks like this one's up to us!"

They all began to chuckle cruelly.

Ivy and the other intelligent plants were almost finished with their scheme.

"Okay," Ivy said, scanning over his clipboard. "So here's the plan. The weeds go in first, because you can't keep them from growing wherever they want. They report back the basic layout of the echidnas city. Then the vegetables" and a large congregation of them began to cheer "are our first wave of attack. They can go in and do their stuff. We all know how dangerous vegetables can be!" There was a series of evil giggles. "Heh heh. Then we send in the weeds again to join them, and them the trees." The trees were equipped with battle axes for an ironic effect. "And, last but certainly not least," Ivy concluded, "the flowers come in to finish them off, with their arsenol of explosives and automatic weapons that we found in that underground chamber!" (That's the Grand Conservatory, in case you wonder) "Any questions?"

"Yes!"

"Huh?" Ivy asked, startled. "Who said that?"

"I did!" It was one of the giant mushrooms. "Want I want to know is, could y'all keep it down? We're tryin' to sleep!"

"Dang fungus," Ivy muttered under his breath.

"I heard that, pretty boy!"

Constable Remington had his troops load up their trucks with all the weed killer they could store.

"The moment those plants make a move," he quietly assured Knuckles and the Chaotix, "we'll be ready."

"Let's just hope so, mate!" Geoffery huffed. "I'd really hate to think what would happen if those mutants got to the city!"

"Shut up!" Espio hissed at them. "They're already here! Don't talk so loud. You never know where one might be hiding!"

"What are you talking about?" Geoffery demanded. "They haven't hit your precious city yet!"

"Then that wasn't a talking strawberry that almost had you for lunch yesterday?" Knuckles asked, tapping his foot.

"Oh. That." Geoffery nervously shuffled his feet. _Dang. I should stick to surface work. These Islanders . . . yech!_

"You're our spy, Espio," Knuckles told the chameleon. "Why don't you go do some spying?"

Espio took the hint and promptly disappeared.

"During the meanwhile," Remington told them, "we have our stealth copters keeping an eye on the Mushroom Zone, so we'll know the moment anything happens."

"Stealth copters?" Geoffery asked, blinking.

Remington blinked back.

"Hey, man, don't be jealous!"

"Yeah!" Vector happily added. "Just because our Island could kick your little Kingdom's royal rear anytime, anywhere - "

Mighty stepped on Vector's foot.

"Put a sock in it," he warned.

Zorak, Colonel Pepsi, and Fish were making their way along the 5-mile journey from Rainbow Valley to Echidnaopolis, with Zorak filling them in on various Nuggets of Joy.

All at once, Colonel Pepsi received a sharp kick in the back and went sprawling on the ground, totally dropping the dish of soap scum, which Fish caught.

"You idiot!" she yelled. "You know how dangerous this stuff is!!"

"B-but, someone kicked me!" he whined.

"Ha!" Zorak snorted. "Are you nuts? There's no one there!"

Right as he said this, Fish also went sprawling on the ground.

"Ooof!" she exclaimed, also dropping the dish of soap scum.

"Hey, come on!" Zorak snapped, catching the bowl. "We don't want to contaminate the place before we conquer it!"

"But someone pushed me down!"

"Oh, shut up."

"But - "

Right then, Zorak also received a sharp kick in a back, and fell right in a large puddle of some greenish fluid that shall remain nameless.

"Yuck!" he sputtered. He glared at Fish and Colonel Pepsi. "All right! Which one of you two jokers . . . woah!"

The bowl of scum which he'd tossed into the air while falling was now floating a few feet above the ground, not having spilled a drop.

"Well that's creepy," Zorak muttered. "Eeeeew!"

The mantisses stood up, and Zorak and Fish were waving around their ray guns, searching for a target.

"Okay, whoever's out there!" Fish hollered. "You're not very funny!"

"Yeah, so come on out where we can see you . . . and turn you into fuzzy pink giraffes with no heads! Hoohoohoohaha!" Zorak added gleefully.

There was no answer. However, the bowl of soap scum began to move. It began to move towards them. They also began to move. They began to move away from it.

"Just how dangerous is that large clump of soap scum?" Zorak whispered to Colonel Pepsi.

"Plenty!" Colonel Pepsi replied in a quavering voice. "One touch of it will give you diarreah for a month and warts!"

"Yuck!"

The bowl continued to move closer, and Zorak took an uneducated guess. He fired his ray gun right beneath the bowl.

The bowl hit the ground as a figure shimmered and appeared as a small, fuzzy pink giraffe with no head.

"Aaaaahhhhh!!!!!" he screamed from a mouth no one could see.

"Anyone else!" Zorak demanded, waving his ray gun around.

"Yes!!" came a shout from above him. Before he could react, Changeling had landed on his head, knocking him to the ground. He quickly grabbed Zorak's ray gun, but Zorak wouldn't let go, and the two of them became engaged of the tug-of-war of the century!

"Oh no!" Fish squealed, and fired her ray gun at Changeling.

"Ahh!" Changeling sputtered, noting this. He let go of the ray gun and bolted, vanishing instantly. Zorak, on the other hand, turned into another fuzzy pink giraffe with no head.

"Whoops. Sorry, boss," Fish said.

Zorak ran around like a headless chicken, waving his long neck in all directions. He ran into the other fuzzy pink giraffe with no head, because neither of them could see where they were going.

"Hey!" Colonel Pepsi shouted in horror. "Zorak's a fuzzy pink giraffe with no head!"

"No kidding!?" Fish tartly replied.

"Oh my gosh!" exclaimed Shadow, appearing next to the two giraffes. "Shift? Is that you?"

Neither of the giraffes answered, because they didn't have any ears, so they hadn't heard the question. Besides, they were too intent on trying to run each other over to pay any attention.

Changeling had reappeared, and now he picked up Zorak's ray gun.

Aiming it at Fish (who aimed hers back) he asked, "Well? Is it reversable?"

"How the heck am I supposed to know?!" she screamed. "I don't even know what I'm doing here!! _I'm the staff plumber, for crying out loud!!!"_

"Fish? You're a plumber?!" Colonel Pepsi exclaimed.

"Yes, and don't you mock it, bubba!" she shouted at him.

Changeling took a closer look at the ray gun.

"Oh! Good news, guys!" he said, and about twenty chameleons popped out of nowhere.

"What's the news, Changeling?" asked Shadow, who was trying to keep a hold on the two giraffes.

"We can turn them back after all!"

"How so?" Shadow inquired.

"How do you know?!?!" Fish yelled.

Changeling glared at her.

"Well, there's this big red button that says 'reverse'."

Fish looked sheepish.

"Oh."

"Fish, let me get this straight," Colonel Pepsi said, holding up his hands for silence.

"Yes?"

"You're a . . . plumber?"

From nowhere, Fish grabbed a large and slimy plunger.

"_Who do you think brought in all that large and dangerous soap scum_?!?!?!?!?!" she screamed.

Colonel Pepsi considered that and replied, "Oh."

Shadow was still trying to hold on to the two giraffes.

"Hey, Changeling, can you change Shift back so we can get rid of these three and be done with it?"

"Sure," Changeling answered. "Which one's Shift?"

Shadow blinked.

"Whoops. Um, I'm not sure."

Changeling sighed.

"Hey, I have an idea," Colonel Pepsi informed everyone. "Why don't we just turn them both back, and then you guys can count to fifty and we'll hide!"

"Huh?" Shadow exclaimed. "You wanna play Ghost in the Graveyard?!"

Colonel Pepsi shrugged.

"Well, I thought it was a good idea!"

Fish grumbled something and Changeling sighed again.

"Fine," he agreed. "We'll do it your way. Put 'em down, Shadow."

Shadow gladly put the two squirming giraffes on the ground, stepped back, and disappeared. Likewise did all the other chameleons in the area except for Changeling. He and Fish both set their rays to reverse and turned the headless pink fuzzy giraffes back into a mantis and a chameleon. They explained the rules, and while Shift and Changeling covered their eyes and counted to fifty, the three mantisses began to look for a place to hide.

"Hey!" Zorak suddenly exclaimed. "What are we doing?! We have them right where we want them!" And he turned and grabbed his ray gun back from Changeling, who was counting away innocently. Immediately, Shadow appeared and kicked him in the head.

"No fair peeking!" Zorak whined, stuck in the green puddle again.

Shadow reclaimed the ray gun.

"No fair stealing!" he retorted. "Now I'd hurry if I were you! The count's still going!"

Indeed, Changeling and Shift were in the high thirties by this time.

The three mantisses realized this and ran off in a mad panic in such a direction that they arrived quickly in Angel Zone. 

"Now what?" Colonel Pepsi asked. "How're we supposed to take over the world when there're invisible people around?"

"Simple!" Fish gleefully answered. "While Zorak was occupying the chameleons, I dumped a plastic explosive in the soap scum! The scum's added effect should blow them all sky high right when he hits fifty!"

Right then, they heard an incredibly loud explosion in the direction they'd come from.

Zorak blinked at Fish.

"How's come you were carrying around a plastic explosive?"

She shrugged.

"It's all part of my plan to one day be the universe's most evil plumber! I have to steal the title from some guy named Fred."

"Hah! You want to be more evil than Fred the Plumber? Go on!" Zorak laughed. "Now come on! We've still got a large population to conquer!!"

Locke rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

"Did you see _that_?!" he exclaimed to Sabre.

"No. They were all invisible."

"But - that mantis plumber just blew up the Island's entire population of chameleons!"

"Except for Espio. He's still in Echidnaopolis. I think."

"You get the point!"

"Hey! They all disappeared right before the thing blew up! For all we know, they're hiding somewhere laughing!"

Locke guzzled another large quantity of coffee.

"I hope so!"

Remington was talking on the phone. Then he stopped talking and hung up.

"Okay, this is it!" he informed everyone. "One of the copters just informed me that the plants are moving out, and they appear to be heavily armed!"

"Heavily armed?!" Mighty exclaimed in disbelief. "With _what_?"

Remington read off the list he'd been given.

"Three tanks, thirty-seven bazookas, nine homing missiles, one hundred plus grenades, twenty-four machine guns, - "

"Okay, I get the point," Mighty broke in. "Sheesh! What do we do now, Knux?"

"Um!" Knuckles replied. "Let's move out that weed killer before we're all turned into fertilizer!"

Just then, a weed poked in through the floor tiling. It popped up right at Vector's feet, and he screamed accordingly.

"Masks, everyone!" Remington ordered. They all pulled gas masks over their faces and blasted so much weed killer at the floor that the room was filled with a chemical fog. 

They looked at each other.

"Okay," Knuckles stated. "This war is officially on!"

Once the plants moved out of the Mushroom Zone, there were two small puffs of smoke, revealing two fire ants, Semper Fidelis and Deo Volente.

"Oh, can't we ever get any peace around here?!" sighed one of the exasperated mushrooms.

"Sorry for bothering you, but we need your help," Deo said. "Those plants that just left?"

"What about them?"

"They want to take over the world! Right now, they're headed for Echidnaopolis, but they'll probably come back here to regroup later on. Can you help us destroy them?"

"Ex_cuse_ me?!" snapped another mushroom. "Why would we turn on our own kind to help yours?"

Espio appeared next to the two ants.

"They're not your own kind!" he contradicted. "They're plants. You're fungus! No problem!"

"Oh, he's right," mumbled one of the mushrooms. "*Sigh*. Okay, what do you want us to do?"

"Hey!" squealed a different mushroom. "Why are we helping them?!"

"Because it's probably the only way we'll ever get any peace around here!"

"Oh."

Fighter planes loaded with weed killing gas were being launched, and tanks full of weed killer missiles were being dispatched. Charmy was flying one of the planes (after all, who knows the sky better than him?) and Mighty and Vector had gone out with the ground forces. Remington, Knux, and Geoffery were just about to join them when Terri-lu, Remington's secretery, ran up to them.

"Hey, we just got this report in!" she exclaimed, catching her breath. "A few hours ago, an unidentified flying object landed in Rainbow Valley!"

"The chameleons' home?" Remington asked, stunned.

"Yeah! And, just a little bit ago, there was a huge explosion about a third of the way here from there!"

Right then, Semper Fidelis appeared with Espio.

"Hey, we've got the mushrooms on our side," Espio informed them as Semper left without so much as a by-your-leave. "What did we miss?"

Terri-lu quickly repeated her story, and Espio blinked.

"How big was this explosion?" he asked.

"_Big_!" she replied.

"Oh, crud. Now we have an alien invasion to deal with alongside an uprising of giant mutant plants!" Remington exclaimed, rather upset. 

"Yeah," Knux agreed. "As Vector would say, Double Doo-Doo!"

"In any case," Espio urgently cut in, "I think someone'd better go check out what's happening over by Rainbow Valley, don't you?"

"No, we have more important problems!" Geoffery sternly replied.

"Hey, who put you in charge around here?!" Remington bellowed. "Go make yourself useful! I agree with Espio. After all, we can't concentrate all our attention on one invasion and leave ourselves vulnerable to another!"

"Yeah, I guess not," Geoffery mumbled.

"We'll let the others handle the plants for now," Knuckles stated. "Archy, can you get us to the sight of the explosion?"

"Of course!" he replied.

"You three go for it. We'll keep track of things here," Remington said.

"Right!" Knuckles agreed as he, Espio, and Archimedes disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving Remington and Geoffery glaring evilly at each other.

Weeds were beginning to pop up all over the city. ESTers were everywhere also, though, killing them out on sight, so the plants weren't making very much progress. Outside the city, however, things were beginning to get interesting.

Pea pods were shooting peas at the fighter planes, blasting holes in their wings and making them drop like stones, while they continued to eject the chemicals even while crashing. The poison was taking out more and more of the sentient plants, but the plants were scoring heavy points as well.

Ivy was getting concerned, though.

"How did they know we were coming?" he wondered out loud.

On cue, a stealth copter flew over his head and doused him good with weed killer. Choking, Ivy sputtered the order for the flowers to engage.

"**Flower Power!!**" they screamed, launching missiles and throwing grenades.

Charmy, who was flying around overhead, was getting sick of the whole thing, so he took his plane and napalmed the whole garden.

"Retreat!!!" Ivy gasped, crawling back to the Mushroom Zone.

Somewhere near Angel Zone, Archimedes, Knuckles, and Espio appeared in yet another puff of smoke. Espio appeared rather distraught over the destruction in the area from the explosion, and he wasn't the only one.

"Just who are these aliens?!" Knux exclaimed angerly, looking at the burnt terrain.

"Well," Archy replied, "I have reason to believe that it may be the work of Zorak, the intergalactic criminal who escaped custody yesterday."

Knuckles blinked.

"Zorak?"

"Yup. A giant mantis bent on universal domination."

"Oh, peachy keen!"

Espio wasn't paying attention to them. He was looking around carefully at the remains of the area.

"Anyone here?" he called out.

"Woah! My aching head!!" came a loud groan somewhere to the right of him.

"Where are you?" Espio asked, heading in the general direction.

Changeling appeared a few feet in front of him, on the ground and rubbing his head. 

"Oh, hi, Unc!"

"Changeling? What the heck's goin' on here?!" Espio demanded, helping him up.

"Well, it all started when these three mantisses landed a space ship on Shadow's house."

"A space ship landed on Shadow's house?"

"Yep! Oh, it landed on Shift, too. They should both be around here somewhere. Anyway, the mantis people totally cheated at the game."

"Game? What game?" Archimedes asked as he and Knuckles approached the pair of them. "And, may I ask, who are you?"

"Oh, this is my nephew, Changeling," Espio introduced. "Changeling, this is Knuckles and Archimedes."

"Hi."

"Hi."

"'Ey, mon."

"Anyway, what game?" Archy repeated.

"Oh, we played Ghost in the Graveyard so that both sides would have a fighting chance after turning Zorak and Shift back from Fuzzy pink giraffes with no heads."

Knuckles stared at him.

"_Huh_?!"

Espio ignored Knux. Instead, he crossed his arms and asked Changeling, "Which way did they go?"

"I dunno! I was counting! I wasn't peeking!"

"I was," said Shadow, appearing right next to them and scaring the socks off Knuckles and Archimedes. "Now come on! Let's go blast the buggers before they hit Echidnaopolis!"

"Too late!" came a shout. No sooner did they turn around in shock than did Zorak zap Knuckles into a small, fuzzy pink echidna with no head.

"AAAAHHHH!!!" Espio screamed, horrified.

"Hey!" Zorak complaimed, shaking his gun. "Why isn't he a giraffe?"

"Duh!" Archy snapped. "Because he's partially protected by his Chaos powers!!"

"Chaos . . . powers?" Zorak repeated, confused.

"Yeah! You just zapped the Guardian of the Floating Island, fool! That was an incredibly stupid thing to do!" Espio yelled, trying not to notice Knux running around like a headless chicken.

Changeling took a quick look around. Then he spotted something that had somehow survived the explosion.

"Stupid how?!" Zorak demanded. "Soon you will _all_ be my slaves!!"

"Aw, slave _this_!" Changeling shouted, scooping up and tossing a large and dangerous clump of soap scum all over the mantis. Then he quickly wiped his gloves off.

Zorak screamed and ran into the woods.

"Quick!" Changeling said to Shadow. "Do you still have the other ray gun so he can reverse Knuckles?"

"Um, actually," Shadow guiltily admitted, "it got blown up."

Archy looked up at Knux in astonishment.

"Here's a twist."

"We have to stop Zorak!" Shift reminded everyone as he appeared.

"Yeah, but what do we do about Knuckles?" Espio fretted. "We can't just go off and leave him like this! He'd end up killing himself, or destroying the Island single handedly!"

"Certainly not single headedly," Shadow dryly remarked.

"In order to turn him back, we need Zorak's ray gun," Changeling pointed out. "The other chameleons all went back to Rainbow Valley to clean up. It's just us here now. And we've gotta stop Zorak!"

"Okay, hang on!" Archy warned, teleporting them all back to Echidnaopolis.

The place was pretty chaotic . . . no pun intended. 

"We're regrouping as fast as we can," Remington told them. "The plants called a retreat just a few minutes ago, after Charmy here bombed them."

Charmy took a sweeping bow.

"Right now, we're working on making repairs to equipment and patching up people who were hurt in that last battle. Also, at this time we have our top scientists working on a formula that will destroy only sentient plant life, while leaving other plants and people perfectly safe," Remington continued. "We can't keep just pushing them back when they show up on our doorstep. We want to wipe them out at their source. It's the only sure way to stop them. At the moment, though, if we try to do that, innocent life may be harmed."

"How long should it take them to develop this formula?" Espio asked. "Because, um, we may need a few of those scientific minds here, if you could spare a couple." He said this while trying to keep a grip on what was left of Knuckles. Whenever he was let lose, he kept trying to dig holes, and he made a terrible mess! "Um, and soon, hopefully."

"Not to mention the mantisses," Shadow pointed out. "What would happen if they hit Echidnaopolis right now and turned half the city into fuzzy pink giraffes with no heads?"

"Also true," Remington acknowledged, and banged his head against the wall. "Crud! I hate days like this!" 

Terri-lu poked her head into the room.

"Hey!" she admonished. "You broke the wall!"

"Oh. Sorry." Remington appeared momentarily chagrined, but he recovered quickly, and addressed Archimedes and the four chameleons. "How long do you think it will take for the mantisses to get here?"

"Actually, it may take quite awhile," Changeling answered. "But it's hard to say."

"Yes. We don't really know the full extent of the damage that that large and dangerous clump of soap scum can do," Shadow agreed.

"Well, do you think you could find them and report their progress?" Remington asked. "After all, you guys are definately the best spies we have."

"Sure, we'll find 'em," Shift said, as he, Changeling, and Shadow vanished. Espio hesitated.

"What about Knux?"

"Leave him to me!" Archy said, disappearing and taking the former echidna with him.

"Espio, wait a sec!" Remington suddenly said.

"Yeah?"

"About how many chameleons are currently living in Rainbow Valley?"

Espio crossed his arms.

"And you want to know this because . . . "

"Well, their help in this situation could be invaluable."

"How did I know." Espio shook his head. "My people really don't like fighting, Constable. On the whole, we'd much prefer to stay in our valley and be left alone. The only reason there was such a turnout in the beginning against the mantisses was because Zorak caused quite a bit of damage, but once everyone cooled down, the others all went home and left it to us. I frankly think that they simply don't want to be involved."

"Oh." Now Remington looked puzzled. "Well, uh, we can count on your help, though, right?"

"Oh, yeah, and Changeling and Shift and Shadow. You know. They landed on Shadow's house, and right on top of Shift, so it's still pretty personal for them, and Changleing, well, he just likes the excitement."

"Well, okay. What was all that about large and dangerous soap scum?"

Archy appeared with Knux in Haven.

"Hello, Locke."

"Hello, Archimedes. I see you've brought my son back?"

"Well, he has a slight problem, as you can see."

"Yes, as I can see. Hmm. I guess now, we should try and figure out what to do about it, shall we?"

Ivy wasn't breathing very well from all the poison and napalm he'd survived, but he'd be all right. As he lead the other plants back to the Mushroom Zone, though, he began to wonder how they were going to pull off this conquest thing.

_Stealth copters?!_ he thought. _They'd been spying on us the whole time with _stealth copters_?!?!_

Finally, they reached their home Zone, but had a rude awakening waiting.

The giant mushrooms were waiting, and they were ready. The moment every single one of the intelligent plants was inside the Zone, they, along with their knives and pendulums, sprouted up all over the Zone, keeping all of them in, and everyone else out.

They weren't going anywhere now.

Remington and Geoffery were fighting again, but Mighty, Charmy, and Vector were tired of listening to them. They were, however, having a most exciting game of cards going on in Remington's office while they waited for further news.

And there to supply that news: the one and only Terri-lu.

"Hey!" she exclaimed, bustling into the room. "Get this! A few moments ago, our local Dairy Market Feul Station and Convenience Store was robbed by two giant mantisses!" Then she looked around. "Where's Constable Remington?"

"Oh, he went to go throw Geoffery out a window, I think," Vector replied. 

"What did the mantisses steal?" Charmy wanted to know.

Terri-lu looked at her report and scratched her head.

"Um, they made off with a huge supply of Pepto Bizmol and chewing gum."

"Oh!" Mighty exclaimed as he pieced it all together. "I get it. Zorak got hit with a large and dangerous clump of soap scum, and Espio says the stuff's supposed to give you . . . um . . . problems. Now he must be getting desperate, if he's bumping off convenience stores."

"But what about the gum?" Vector asked. "I mean, just where does gum fit into any of this?"

"Good question," Charmy agreed. "But I have no clue!"

"Me neither!" sighed Mighty.

"Well, that's it then! I'm now officially confused!"

Terri-lu growled about something under her breath.

"What was that?" Mighty asked her. "I didn't quite catch it."

"I said," she repeated with a sneer, "I _wanted_ that gum they stole! Make sure y'all give these mantisses the ride of their lives!"

The three Chaotix exchanged a look.

"At the moment, though, we're supposed to stay on the sentient plant thing," Mighty explained. "Espio's in charge of dealing with the mantisses."

"Does he have an evil mind?"

"Oh-ho-ho, yes!"

Speaking of which, Espio had joined the other three chameleons in seeking out the three mantisses. On a whim, they decided to begin their search in the Angel Zone, and quickly found their hiding place.

Fish had just shown up with a large supply of Pepto Bizmol, and Colonel Pepsi had been right on her heels, loaded down with gum.

Zorak wasn't looking so well. Already, he had a nasty case of the runs and a good many warts. He wasn't looking so happy, either.

"Stupid chameleons!!!!!" he seethed. "How DARE they?!?!?!?!??!?!!? OH! Give me more of the pink stuff! Now!!!!!!"

"What should we do about the chameleons, boss?" Colonel Pepsi asked. "I mean, they could be anywhere! And what was up with that red dude and the ant?"

"How should I know?! Just get out there and do something useful! Oooooooooh."

Fish and Colonel Pepsi exchanged a confused look. 

"Um . . . we could go blow up that city where we stole the Pepto Bizmol," Colonel Pepsi suggested.

"Good idea," Fish agreed. "I still have a good many explosives left. We could do some major damage."

"What do you think, Zorak?" 

Zorak sneered at them.

"What are you wating for? Just do it! I'll come up with something good and evil to do to those chameleons! Hoohoohoohaha!"

The two mantisses shrugged and left, leaving the ray gun with Zorak.

From their watching place up in a tree, Changeling materialized and asked Espio what they should do now.

"Two of us should go after the other two," he advised. "We don't want them blowing up Echidnaopolis. There are already enough people trying to do that. The other two wait here and get the ray gun from Zorak."

"Fine. Who does what?" Changeling then asked.

On cue, Shadow and Shift vanished, going after Colonel Pepsi and Fish.

"Okay, never mind. Well, Uncle, how do we get at Zorak?"

"Oh, we rely on my evil mind . . . "

To be continued in part three:

Guardians Fighting Mantisses and Plants Conquering the World


	3. Guardians Fighting Mantisses and Plants ...

The Double Doo-Doo Saga

The Double Doo-Doo Saga 

Part Three: 

Guardians Fighting Mantisses and Plants Conquering the World   
  
  
  
  


Written by Anna-mathe. 

Knuckles the Echidna and related characters are property of Sega and Archie Comics. 

Zorak and related characters are property of Cartoon Network. 

Colonel Pepsi is property of Gloria. 

Changeling is my mother's. 

Other characters are property of myself. 

Please do not use any of the original characters without contacting me.

  
  
  
  
  


Geoffery St. John pulled himself out of the garbage dumpster. 

_That's it. I am outta this funky Island!_

He brushed some garbage of his arm. 

_First I get attacked by one sentient plant after another. Then that dolt Remington throws me out a window!_

Trying to retain some portion of his dignity, he exited Echidnaopolis.   
  


Remington wandered aimiably through EST HQ, heading for his office. 

"Oh, there you are!" Terri-lu exclaimed, spotting him. "Where's the skunk?" 

"Geoffery? Didn't I say I was going to throw him out a window?"   
  


Zorak downed another bottle of Pepto Bizmol and groaned. 

"Oh, crud! I have to put up with a month of this?!?!?!" 

Aggrivated, he reached for some gum. He liked gum. Then the mantis blinked in surprise and horror. 

_Where's my gum?!_

A quick search of the area showed that all his gum had disappeared. Suddenly wary, he reached for his ray gun. 

_Who ever made off with my gun is going to regret it, big time!_ he thought, angerly. 

When he turned his head again, he found that his Pepto Bizmol was also gone. 

_What the heck! There's no one here but me . . ._ Then he thought of something. _Oh, peachy. It's those gol danged chameleons again!_

"Hey, Bug!" came a voice out of nowhere. "You threw a bomb at us!" 

"Are you nuts? That was my evil staff plumber!" he snarled. "Go away! I'm sick!" 

"Is that what that smell is?" 

"Hey, what's with all the warts?" asked another voice. 

"Shut up! Shut up!" he shouted, waving his ray gun around, trying to figure out where the voices were coming from. _First it's Space Ghost with his inviso power, then now it's these dumb chameleons . . ._

Before he could complete the thought, his ray gun was whisked from his hand. 

Changeling appeared, running around with a pile of gum and Pepto Bizmol. 

"Hi!" he called, cheerfully. 

"Why you!" Zorak yelled, taking off after him. 

"Wow!" Sabre exclaimed, watching the scene on a viewer from Haven. "He's in hot pursuit!" 

"Really?" Locke asked, coming over to take a look. 

Knuckles began to dig holes.   
  


Espio appeared from nowhere on Zorak's shoulders. 

"What are you doing up there?!?!" Zorak screamed. 

As way of a reply, Espio began to whack Zorak over the head repeatedly with the ray gun. 

"Dang you!" the poor mantis bellowed, trying to dislodge him and chase after Changeling at the same time. "Vigasso beano laga, vigasso beano cous-cous!" 

"What?" Changeling asked, stopping suddenly, causing Zorak to trip over him and fly through the air, smacking into a tree, and splattering on the ground. 

"Ow," said Espio, who was still clinging to Zorak's head. 

"Sorry," Changeling said sheepishly. 

Taking advantage of the moment, Zorak grabbed back his ray gun and turned them both into fuzzy pink giraffes with no heads. 

"Hoohoohoohaha!" he laughed, picking up his gum. 

"Uh oh. That's bad," Sabre observed, watching as the two former chameleons began to dig holes. 

"Digging holes! Oh no! Where's Knuckles?!" Locke suddenly exclaimed, looking around for his son. 

"Um, he's down there," Archimedes said, pointing down a deep hole on the floor. 

"Oh crud. Why didn't you stop him, Archimedes?" Locke asked, reaching down and scooping up what was left of Knuckles. 

The fireant shrugged. 

"I thought he might find something interesting down there." 

"Woah!" Sabre called out. "The chameleons are halfway to China-opolis!" 

Locke gave Archimedes a sour glare. 

"Thought he might find something interesting, huh?" He stood up and handed Sabre Knuckles' somewhat altered form. "Put him on a leash until I get back." 

Sabre blinked at him. 

"Where are you going?" 

"I've got a mantis to put on ice."   
  


Fish and Colonel Pepsi were nearing Echidnaopolis. 

"Haha! I'll show Fred the Plumber who's the most Evil Plumber in the universe!" Fish cackled. 

"Who is?" Colonel Pepsi asked, confused. 

Before Fish could threaten him with her plunger, both of them got hit in the heads with rocks. 

"Ow!" the both shouted, rubbing their noggins. 

"Hey!" Shadow shouted, materializing in front of them. "Stop trying to blow up the world!" 

"Listen, punk!" Fish shouted. "I'm GOING to be the universe's most evil plumber, and if I have to take YOU out to do it, then FINE!!!" Then, with an enraged screech, she ran at Shadow with her plunger aimed at his throat. 

"Woah!" Shadow stated, taking off.   
  


"Yes!" Sabre hooted. "Another hot pursuit!" 

Archimedes wondered what had been in the coffee.   
  


"Gee, uh, Fish, are you sure you should do that?" Colonel Pepsi asked squeamishly as Fish caught up with the chameleon and made an ugly attempt to suck out his brains with her toilet plunger. 

"Y-y-y-yyyyooooOOOOWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!" Shadow screamed as his head was being plunged. 

"Oh, I'll save you!" Shift said, appearing in a tree branch just above Fish and Shadow. He jumped down and grabbed hold of the plunger. "Hand it over!" he demanded, pulling at it. 

"No! It's mine!" Fish argued, pulling it back. 

The two of them engaged in the tug-of-war of the century, while Shadow grumbled and Colonel Pepsi looked for a good place to throw up. He happened to know that the plunger was, in fact, a USED plunger, thus tripling the disgust factor of this struggle.   
  


Over in the Mushroom Zone, the mushrooms were debating over what to do with their prisoners. 

"Let's not eat them," one of them reasoned. "That would be too much like cannibalism." 

"Eww, yuck! Eating plants? DisGUSting!" agreed another. 

"Let's just forget about the plants, find a nice plump hedgehog, have a barbeque . . . " 

"Can you all just put a sock in it? I'm TRYING to SLEEP!" 

Meanwhile, Ivy and his plantfriends were debating about what to do about the mushrooms. 

"We've gotta find a way outta here!" whined a grapevine. "I'm getting claustrophobic!" 

"Anyone still have any ammo?" Ivy asked. 

A willow tree stepped up. 

"I've still got four grenades and a flamethrower!" 

"All right!" Ivy exclaimed. "Now, let's blow this popsicle stand!" 

"But where're we gonna go?" asked complained a bean. "If we leave, we're gonna have to deal with more stealth copters and stuff." 

"True," Ivy conceded. "Let's get reinforcements." 

"From where?" piped up a pea. 

"Oh, come on!" Ivy admonished. "It's a big planet down there! Surely our kinsmen on the mainland would give us a helping hand here on the Floating Island . . . "   
  


Just in case you're wondering, Remington, Mighty, Vector, and Charmy were playing Go Fish in Remington's office all this time.   
  


Geoffery looked around in surprise at Mobotropolis. 

There were no people. The city was populated by . . . daisies. Eight-foot-tall daisies. They were everywhere! 

"Hey! Food!" shouted one of them, noticing him. 

"Food!" shouted every daisy in the vicinity. 

"Uh oh," he mumbled to himself, as a few hundred daisies advanced on him. 

_Okay. Options: get eaten by daisies, or run for my life. Hmmmmmmm . . ._

It was a tough choice. However, common sense prevailed, and he bolted for the one place where plant life couldn't survive: the Southern Tundra. 

The daisies considered going after him, but decided it wasn't worth the effort.   
  


"Hey, you!" 

Zorak turned. 

"What? Who's that phantom stranger?" he asked, looking in surprise at the cloaked figure standing a few yards away. 

"I am your worst nightmare!" 

"Oh, please!" Zorak laughed. "Do you know how many times I've heard _that_ one?" 

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the figure flew at him through the air and pummelled him so hard in the head that he was knocked back about ten feet on the ground. Completing an aerial loop, the figure landed exactly where he'd taken off from. 

"All right! That's it! Vigasso beano laga, vigasso beano - " 

The figure struck again before Zorak could even finish the threat. 

Now Zorak was getting torked off. He had diarreah for a month, warts, and now a smashing headache! 

"Stop it!" he shouted. 

"No," the figure calmly replied. 

"Grr!" Zorak growled, whipping out his ray gun. "Just exactly who do you think you are?!" 

"I," the figure said, as a strange tingle raced through Zorak's fingers, "am," he continued as a green glow engulfed the ray gun, "the **_Guardian of the Floating Island_**!" 

"NOT ANYMORE!!!!!" Zorak contradicted, firing the ray gun, expecting the figure to turn into another fuzzy pink giraffe with no head. Instead, nothing happened. "What?!" he muttered, aghast. "Why won't - " 

Locke dumped the cloak bit and socked Zorak upside the head. Zorak, thoroughly torked, socked him back.   
  


"Woo-hoo! Grituitous violence!!" Sabre yelled, jumping up and standing in his chair. 

"Hey!" Archimedes shouted. "From now on, you lay off the caffienne!" 

Sabre ignored Archimedes, paying attention to the fight. Locke and Zorak were putting up a slug-fest that would make any WWFer cry. 

"Go for the juggular, m'boy! The juggular!" 

Archy, annoyed, looked up at the screen. His eyes widened, and then he winced. 

"Oooo, that one had to hurt." 

"Look, look, he got 'im back!" 

"That's it, Locke, go for it!" 

"Don't let him get away with that one!" 

"Ow! That's the way!" 

"Give it to 'im!" 

"That wasn't fair!" 

"C'mon, get him!" 

"Use your knuckles!" 

"Blood! Blood! Woo-hoo!!" 

"Yuck! That's nasty! Keep it up, Locke, keep it up!" 

"The juggular! I'm tellin' ya! The juggular!!!!!"   
  


Locke grabbed a large rock and slammed it on Zorak's head. 

Zorak bit him in the leg. 

"OW!" Locke yelled, jabbing the mantis in the back with his knuckles. 

"OW!" Zorak yelled back, kicking him in the face and getting back to his feet. 

Locke grabbed one of Zorak's antennaes and yanked it. Out. 

Zorak, howling, grabbed the echidna, who was somewhat smaller than him, by the dreadlockes and rammed him into a tree. 

The tree broke and landed on Zorak. 

"Whoops," Locke said, rubbing his head. 

"Oooooooooo," came Zorak's voice from under the tree. 

"Well," Locke said to himself, "that was fulfilling." 

"Whaddya go and do that for?" Zorak whined. 

"Duh!" Locke snapped at the tree. "You turned my son into a one-foot-tall fuzzy pink echidna with no head! Not to mention, of course, you trashed Rainbow Valley, tried to conquer the world, and had your henchmantisses bump off convenience stores!" 

"Oh. Yeah. Well, vigasso beano laga, vigasso beano cous-cous!" 

"Will you stop it with that cous-cous stuff! What's it supposed to mean, anyway?" 

"That means: I don't get mad; I get even." 

The tree stood up, looked at the two of them, and ran off. 

Zorak stood up and scratched his head. 

"Whatever," he said. Then he noticed his missing antannae. "You!" he accused Locke, who was still holding onto the antennae. 

And so the slug-fest continued.   
  


Shadow was getting bored waiting for either Shift or Fish to obtain the plunger. Finally, he just got completely fed up with it all. 

"Hey, can you two knock it off?!" he complained. 

"What?!?!?!" Fish shouted between spitting insults at Shift. 

Shadow sighed and disappeared. 

That startled Fish enough that Shift could win the plunger war. Once free, Shadow ran off and searched for something to wash the plunger residue off his face. 

"RRRRRR!!!!!!" Fish seethed, chasing after him once again. 

Colonel Pepsi and Shift looked at each other. 

"Oh, I think we're supposed to battle it out among ourselves until one of them comes back victorious," Shift observed. 

"P-shaw," Colonel Pepsi replied. "I'm not stupid! I'm not going to do anything to you while you have that plunger!" 

"Really?" 

Shift looked at his prize with some consideration. 

"Well then, HEY!!!!" he shouted, scaring Colonel Pepsi into taking off. He ran after him, waving around Fish's plumber madly for dramatic effect.   
  


Geoffery finally got to the Southern Tundra, and instantly wished he'd planned for the weather. 

_So much for the Secret Service being prepared for everything,_ he thought wryly, shivering. _Of course, I hadn't planned on making a run for it from a population of daisies . . ._

A blue blur went past him, stopped, and came back, halting just beside him. 

"Hey! Where've you been?" demanded one angry Sonic the Hedgehog. 

Geoffery blinked. 

"Sonic? What're you doing here?!" 

"Ha! Are you kidding?! Those plants took everyone by surprise! We had to pull back to regroup." 

Geoffery crossed his arms. 

"Really? The ever-courageous Sonic had to pull back?" 

Sonic gritted his teeth. 

"Now I remember why I don't like you. As it happens, mister, we had a city to evacuate. Those danged plants popped up everywhere!" 

"Oh, great," Geoffery muttered. "And all that time I was up on that stupid Floating Island - " 

"You were on the Floating Island? Why?" Sonic asked. 

Geoffery stepped on his own foot. 

"Euh, Secret Service stuff," he replied. 

"Are they having the same problem with these plant-thingies?" 

"'Pears so." 

"Well, what are they doing about it?" 

"Still thinking, for the most part. Doused 'em with weed-killer, napalmed 'em, got the Giant Mushrooms upset with 'em, but still can't figure out how to get rid of 'em." 

"Yuck." 

"What?" 

"Those Giant Mushrooms. Yuck." 

"Oh. Anyway, you seen King Acorn around?" 

"Yeah, he's out hangin' with everyone else." 

"Where?" 

Sonic waved a hand. 

"Oh, that way." 

"Ah." 

"Well, let's go before you freeze off your Secretly Serviced behind . . . "   
  


"Now!!" yelled Ivy. 

Willow ran through the circle of Mushroom guards waving his flame-thrower, causing the Mushrooms to scatter like flies. 

"RUN!!!" Ivy needlessly ordered, as the plants all bolted for the opening. 

In three seconds, every sentient plant was out of Mushroom Zone and still running. 

A mushroom peered after them. 

"Whoops."   
  


An alarm went off, and cards went flying everywhere. 

"Good golly!" Mighty exclaimed, getting over the sudden shock. "What the heck is that?!" 

"Our early warning system!" Remington replied. He fiddled with some knobs on his desk. "Okay, what's happening?" 

"The plants just made a break for it!" replied his desk. Or at least, a speaker on his desk. "They're heading NorthWest for the edge of the Island!" 

"After them!!" Remington shouted, jumping up to his feet. "C'mon, guys! If they got past the Mushrooms, they must still be armed. 

"Oh, that's just exactly what we needed," Vector grumbled, looking sadly at the remains of their last Go Fish game. "I was winning, too." 

Charmy grabbed his tail and yanked him out of the room with the others.   
  


Locke and Zorak continued pummelling each other for quite some time, until Zorak finally snapped. 

"AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!" he suddenly screamed. 

"What's the matter with you?" Locke asked, surprised. 

"I-I-I-I-I . . . I NEED MY PEPTO BIZMOL!!!!!!!!!!!!" 

"Oh, this is great," Locke sighed. Zorak, heavily upset, sat down and started crying. 

Shaking his head, Locke walked over, plucked the ray gun from the mantis's hand, and began to walk away. Then he remembered something. 

_Espio and Changeling!!_   
  


"Well well. He should've gone for the juggular," Sabre remarked to Archimedes. Then he promptly passed out. 

Archy shook his head in disbelief. 

"No, seriously," he said to the Guardian's unconscious body. "You really need to lay off the caffiene! Next time, don't drink quite so much coffee."   
  


After a bit of searching, Locke found the hole the two former chameleons had been digging. Peering down the hole, he found, much to his dismay, that it was too deep for him to see the bottom. He also found that he couldn't fit down the hole. 

Sitting beside the hole and considering what to do, he finally decided on standing up and shouting, "HEY! ARCHY!!" at the top of his lungs.   
  


Archimedes, watching the scene, figured that it was time for his exit.   
  


"You called?" he asked, materializing on Locke's shoulder. 

"Yeah. Do you think you could just go down that hole and see of you can find two fuzzy pink giraffes with no heads?" 

Archy looked down the hole and shivered. 

"Oh, come on," Locke urged. "How would you ever explain to Knuckles that his two pals were stuck somewhere underground, digging around for who-knows what, and would probably never be seen again?" 

Archimedes sighed and relented. He crawled down the hole, mumbling something about caffiene-addicted echidnas. A few minutes later, he appeared in a small puff of smoke with the two former chameleons, who instantly began to dig another hole. 

Before they could get too far, Locke zapped them both back into chameleons. 

"What the!" Espio exclaimed, suddenly finding himself with his head underground. 

He poked back up into the air along with Changeling. The two of them exchanged a questioning look. 

No one else was there to be found. 

"So, the echidnas are trying to find a way to kill them off?" King Acorn asked. 

"Yes, sir!" Geoffery replied. "Their leading scientific minds are working on it as we speak." 

The King thought for a few moments. 

"They have an advantage over us. We were driven out too quickly by the plants, but they still have access to the equipment necessary to get rid of them. Commander, I want you to go back to the Floating Island!" 

"Oh no!" Geoffery slipped, quickly clamping his hands over his own mouth. "I mean, er, as you wish, your majesty." 

King Acorn gave him a reprimanding look. 

"I want you to take Sonic with you." 

"The hedgehog? Why?" 

"Because I think the Islanders like him better than you."   
  


Fish caught Shadow again, but this time she didn't have her plunger with her. Therefore, it was easy for Shadow to turn the tables on her. That is, he kicked her in the head. 

Shift chased Colonel Pepsi up alongside them. Colonel Pepsi was astonished to find the chameleon overpowering Fish, and in his astonished moment, Shift whacked him over the head with Fish's plunger. 

The two mantisses at once realized that they'd ended up back in Rainbow Valley. 

Looking at each other, they both exclaimed, "To the Phantom Cruiser, Robin!" and took off running again. This time, Shadow and Shift didn't follow. They just fell on the ground laughing.   
  


"What in the name of the Ancient Walkers happened to _him_?!" Locke demanded upon his and Archimedes's return to Haven, pointing at Sabre, who was snoring all over the control panel. 

"Um, nothing. Nothing at all," Archimedes replied, rolling his eyes. 

Not believing that for a moment, Locke looked like he was going to push the subject, but then figured that he really didn't want to know. 

"Anyway, where's Knuckles?" 

"Oh, over here," Archy said. 

Knuckles had, as ordered, been put on a leash. He had also dug as far as the leash would allow in a perfect circle. Now he was hanging limply in the air, trying to find something to dig in. 

"Oh boy," Locke mumbled, taking the headless, one-foot-tall, pink, and fuzzy version of his son out of the leash. "Let's see what to do with him now. How can we turn him back without him seeing where he is?" 

Ivy was running as fast as he could, when the ground suddenly dropped out from under him. Yelping, he slid down a long passage before erupting into a crystaline cavern beneath the surface. 

Sitting up from the heap he'd landed in, he looked around in astonishment. 

_Oh my gracious goodness!_ he thought with awe. _I'm in the Chaos Chamber!!_

He heard shoting and explosions above him. 

_Uh oh! We've been caught up with!_   
  


"We have a possibility for an answer to this mess!" Remington told the Chaotix, holding a gas bomb of some sort. "I've been told that this stuff should eliminate the intelligent plants without harming anything/anyone else!" 

"Go for it!" Charmy urged, throwing a grenade at a large, green . . . something. 

Remington made ready to throw the sucker, pulling out the pin. Then everything changed. 

"**_HOLD IT!!!!!_**" came the shout. 

Everyone, plant and Mobian alike, turned to regard the new arrival. Remington put the pin back in the gas bomb. 

Standing there, just behind the violence, was the formidable figure everyone dreaded meeting: a hippy! 

"Just hold it!" he repeated earnestly. 

They held it. 

"Did you ever stop to think about what you're doing here? You plants," he said, gesturing to Willow and the others, "you want to rule the world, so you try to wipe out the Mobians. We Mobians," he said, directing attention to Remington and the Chaotix, "want to wipe out the plants because they're invading our cities. Didn't you ever just stop and consider?" 

The hippy walked out between the animals and the plants. 

"Sure, we animals may have red blood while the plants have no blood. Sure, inside, we may be nothing alike at all. But can't we all find a way to coexist?" He pointed to Remington's gas bomb. "You are attempting **genocide**!" 

The word brought out a gasp from everyone, and the hippy concluded his speech. 

"Can't we all just get along?" 

Willow wiped a tear from his eye. 

"That was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard!" he whimpered. 

Remington looked at the gas bomb in his hand, thinking about what to do. After all, genocide was a pretty harsh accusation. 

As it turned out, though, his thinking didn't amount to much, because the Floating Island itself suddenly gave a huge lurch. 

"_Hit the deck!!'_" Vector yelled as the ground tilted under him, throwing him into a rock. 

Everyone flew in all directions and grabbed onto whatever they could find.   
  


Fish and Colonel Pepsi were searching through Rainbow Valley, frantically trying to find the Phantom Cruiser, when the Island began to go out of control. They grabbed onto a tree and waited it out.   
  


Zorak was hiding under a rock, so it didn't bother him any.   
  


The chameleons all ran into their houses and hoped for the best, except for poor Shadow who didn't have a house anymore. He also hung onto a tree.   
  


Espio and Changeling, who were still trying to figure out what had happened, fell into their holes and got stuck.   
  


Terri-lu almost choked on her gum.   
  


_"What's going on?!?!?!_" Locke yelled at the top of his lungs as he tried to get an answer form the computers. "Dang it, father, wake up!" he snapped at Sabre, who still hadn't come around from his coffee O.D. 

Haven lurched to the right and the remaining coffee spilled on Sabre's head, waking him up. 

"What just happened?" he asked, groggily. 

The Island lurched again. 

"Oh." 

"We're . . . falling!" Locke said with some astonishment. "The Floating Island is falling out of the sky!" He blinked. "The Chaos Emerald!!!!" 

"That's it; I'm sending Knuckles back now!" Archimedes stated, disappearing with the ray gun the the fuzzy pink echidna with no head.   
  


**_ BANG!!!!!!!_**

**_ SPLASH!!!!!!_**

**_ sinksinksinksink . . ._**   
  


When Knuckles woke up, he was lying flat on his back in the grass. 

"Knux? What're you doin' here, man?" Vector asked, picking himself up somewhere near him. 

"What happened?" he asked, sitting up. 

The other Chaotix began to get up. 

"Ow! What hit us?" Mighty asked, rubbing his head in a daze. 

"The ocean!" replied Charmy. 

"What?" Knuckles asked, startled. 

"We just crashed down in the ocean!" Charmy informed them all. "The Floating Island is no longer floating! At least, not in the sky. Now it's floating in water." 

Still startled, Knuckles just blinked. 

The hippy was mysteriously gone. 

The short silence was broken by a sudden flash of neon green light the erupted from a hole in the ground that Knuckles immediately identified as the Zoot Chute. Following the light came a figure flying through the air at amazing speeds. 

"I am HYPER-IVY!!" screamed Hyper-Ivy. 

"NO WAY!!!!" Knuckles screamed, clamping his hands to his head. "Y-y-you can't have hyper powers!! I-i-i-i-it just can't be!!!!!" 

"How did you . . . " Mighty began to ask before he figured out that he was almost definately not going to like the answer. 

Hyper-Ivy grinned. 

"Well, did you ever notice the Master Chaos Emerald that was in the funky chamber down there?" 

"Y-yeah, we noticed it," Knuckles stammered. 

Hyper-Ivy grinned a little bit wider. 

"I ate it," he said. 

Vector passed out.   
  


As you can imagine, Sonic and Geoffery were rather surprised to find the Floating Island drifting peacefully through the ocean. 

"What's Knux up to?" Sonic wondered. 

Geoffery snorted. 

"Considering what's been going on up there, it's likely that a giant plant ate the Master Emerald." 

"Hah! Now _that_ one was pretty danged lame, St. John!" 

"Anyway, let's just go and see what's been happening."   
  


Locke shook his head in disbelief. 

"A weed just ate the Emerald. This is just simply and devastatingly _PEACHY!!!_!!!!" 

"Calm down, Locke," Archimedes urged. "So, we have a hyper vegetable on the loose. What harm could a plant do?" 

On cue, the screen showed Hyper-Ivy eating up everyone in sight. 

"Never mind. Just . . . never mind." 

A loud beeping noise interrupted the conversation. 

"That's the priority one alert!" Archy exclaimed with some dismay. 

"No, really?" Locke quipped, suddenly feeling rather sarcastic. He pushed a button to get the news. "Uh oh," he softly said. For a long moment, he silently stared at the screen. Then he repeated: "Uh oh." 

"What is it?" Sabre asked, naturally wanting to know. 

"Locke?" Archimedes prompted when the Guardian didn't answer. 

Locke gestured to the screen. 

"Gentlemen, we're sinking. I estimate total submersion within two hours."   
  


Colonel Pepsi and Fish fell out of their tree and got knocked clean out when the Island made impact. Now they began to stir a bit. 

"What the hoo-ha's goin' on here?!?!?!?!?!" Colonel Pepsi demanded. 

A chorus of chameleonic laughter replied. 

The mantisses blinked nervously at the circle of chameleons that surrounded them. 

"Wh-what're you gonna do to us?" Fish asked, hoping it wouldn't be too messy. 

Shadow and Shift stepped forward out of the ring with evil grins on their faces. 

"We're going to give you exactly what you're looking for!" answered Shadow. 

Shift looked like he was about to say something, but ended up instead laughing his head off. 

The evil mantisses exchanged a glance. 

"Ahem," Fish said, clearing her throat. "And, uh, what do we want?" 

"Why, the Phantom Cruiser, you silly mantis!" Shadow replied, glaring in an annoyed manner at Shift, then relenting and laughing his own head off. 

"Er, uh, why would you give us the ship?" Colonel Pepsi asked. 

Shift spread his hands. 

"Hey! Who would want you dudes off this planet any more than we do?" 

"Take it or leave it, pal!" Shadow added. 

"We'll take it!" both mantisses immediately replied. 

The chameleons reacted by bursting out in more hysterical laughter. 

Then came the sight that brought a new level of horror to Fish and Colonel Pepsi. 

"Oh my coolie-donkers," Colonel Pepsi mumbled under his breath. 

"They disassembled the Phantom Cruiser," Fish breathed, "and turned the parts . . . . into _toasters . . . .?!_" 

**-----WARNING!----->>>>>>**

**This passage contains a serious moment!**

  
  


"Knux!!!" Vector whispered in a brave attempt to control his sudden case of utter terror. "What are we gonna do???" 

"I don't know!!" Knuckles whispered back, watching the hyper-energized plant fly about. 

"Turn into Hyper-Knuckles!" Mighty urged. "Then you could take him with no trouble!" 

"I can't!" the echdina snapped desperately. "I need to Emerald to transform, and I can hardly get the Emerald when it's in Ivy's stomach!" 

"That's _Hyper-Ivy_ to you, ruffian!!" yelled the weed as it flew through the air and, with lightning quick speed, came up behind Charmy and bashed him on the back of the head, sending him shooting down to the ground, where he landed with a crunch. 

"HEY!!" Mighty yelled, forgetting caution in his outrage. "Pick on someone your own size, you creep!" 

Hyper-Ivy shrugged. "Sorry. No one here's an ivy plant with vines up to twenty feet long. You'll do, though!" 

"_Noooooo!_" Knuckles cried, watching helplessly as Hyper-Ivy zapped Mighty with a blast of pure Chaos Energy before the Guardian could cover half the area between them. The armadillo screeched something and then collapsed in a smoking heap. 

"Stop!!" Vector hissed, grabbing him before he reached the plant. "C'mon, Knux! Don't lose your cool! That's one mean weed, and he's achin' to to some gardening of his own . . . to _us_!" 

"We've gotta do something!" Knuckles persisted. 

"Like what?" 

"Look what he just did to Mighty and Charmy - " 

"I see very well what he did to Mighty and Charmy, and if you lose your head, we're going be in the same state of mind. Namely: comatose!" 

Knuckles bit his lip. 

"You're right," he conceded. Then he looked around. "Where's Constable Remington?" 

Vector shrugged. 

"I think Hyper-Illness over there ate him. Haven't seen him since we hit water." 

"Hit water is right!" came a new voice. 

Archimedes appeared in another puff of smoke, his face bearing a very grim expression. 

"Knuckles," he said, addressing his student, "you've got to do something, and fast." 

"You think I don't know that?" Knuckles demanded sourly. 

The fireant shook his head. 

"You don't understand, my friend. In less then two hours, the Island will be under water. We have no support under the ocean as continents do, and we're far from buoyant." 

Now Knuckles blinked in shock. 

"The Island is sinking?" he asked in a quiet voice. 

Grimly, Archimedes nodded. 

"But . . . that would kill almost everyone here!" 

"Like poison ivy with Chaos Powers wouldn't?!" Vector exclaimed. "You two can ramble on about technicalities some other time! Right now, unless we do something, we won't live another two hours anyway!" 

"Knuckles," Archimedes stated in his low, calm voice. "You are a Guardian. Potentially the most powerful Guardian to ever live. Your link with the Chaos Emerald is not restricted to the Chaos Chamber, nor do you need Power Rings to use it's energy. Without them, you cannot transform, but you can still make contact with the Emerald no matter where it is." 

"But I - " Knuckles began to cut in, feeling more helpless in these few moments than he had in a very, very long time. 

"Stop." Archy wasn't having it. "Yes, you don't know what to do. You've got to believe me when I say that that doesn't matter. Not at all." 

For a long moment, Knuckles stared at his teacher, weighing his trust balance. Archimedes returned the stare with his cool gaze, almost daring him to go through with . . . whatever it was he was supposed to go through with. 

Almost without realizing it, he turned and directed his attention to Hyper-Ivy, who was ignoring them and playing around with his new powers. 

watched - 

looked - 

felt - 

heard - 

sensed the powers- 

sensed the presence- 

And he sensed it suddenly slamming him up against a nonsentient tree. 

Hyper-Ivy had felt something tampering with the Emerald within him. He didn't know exactly what was happening, but he could somehow tell that it was the fault of this young echidna who called himself the Guardian. Panicing at the thought of losing his newfound powers, he shot through the airspace and slammed Knuckles against the tree. 

"I don't know what you're doing," he hissed in a low voice, "but you'd better stop now, before I batter your skull in." 

Knuckles opened his eyes and just then noticed that they had been closed. He looked past Hyper-Ivy to Vector, who was paralized with a horrified expression on his face. Archimedes, too, seemed rivited to the spot. 

_He froze them somehow . . ._

Hyper-Ivy was now examining him with some curiosity. 

"What _were_ you doing, anyway?" he asked after a long moment of silence. 

Knuckles didn't answer. He stared Hyper-Ivy straight in the eye. 

But he wasn't seeing. 

Again, he was in contact with the Master Emerald. As his options fell into place, the somehow drew upon its energy, summoning it from Hyper-Ivy's from into his own. 

"Oh . . . " he said as everything suddenly began to make sense. 

"What the - ?!?!" Hyper-Ivy screamed as a blast of green light shot out from within him and into the echidna. He tried to hurt Knuckles, but couldn't. So he tried to run. He couldn't. He couldn't move, caught in the power transfer - 

- the transfer of of universe of energy from its resting place into the small, comparatively fail living body of the young Guardian - 

Knuckles did not move. He didn't think. He barely saw, he barely heard, he barely cared. 

But he felt the blast coming - 

**. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ?**   
  


Vector couldn't move for some unknown reason, and now he couldn't see what happened. What he _had_ seen was Hyper-Ivy about to waste Knuckles while he stood there, unable to even move a finger for his friend. A strange green light crawled over the echidna and the plant, and then POOF, a globe of light sheltered them from his prying gaze. 

"Gol dang it, Archy!" he seethed. "What's going on?!?!?!" 

"I'm not sure!" he heard the ant reply. 

"Oh yeah, like I haven't heard that one before." Disgruntled and worried, Vector continued to do the only thing he could: stare straight forward into the light globe. 

After a few moments, the light vanished. In the blink of an eye (not that Vector could bink if he wanted to) it just disappeared. Hyper-Ivy was also gone, and so was the Master Emerald. Knuckles remained, but as Vector and Archimedes felt mobility return to them, he fell into an unconscious heap on the ground. 

"Oh my gosh - " Vector exclaimed, running over to him, however wobbly. "Knux! Knuckles!" he called, trying to revive the echidna. "Well, Archy? Is he dead, or what?" 

"He's alive," Archimedes answered. "However, the energy drove him into a system shock, I think. He couldn't handle it." 

"And Hyper-Ivy?" 

"Quite dead, I would think." 

"The Emerald?" 

"Back in the Chaos Chamber as we speak. The Island should begin to rise momentarily, although slowly - " 

"Archy." 

"Yes?" 

"Is Knux gonna be all right?" 

Archimedes waved an antenna at the croc. 

"I don't know," was the only reply he could give. 

Vector snorted. 

"Well that just figures. Do you, uh, think you could do your little poof thing and get some help here?" he asked, sarcastically. 

"Yes, I think I could very well do just that."   
  


There was a loud popping noise heard in the Chaos Chamber. 

POOF! 

The Master Emerald appeared, along with Constable Remington, the hippy, the ESTers, and anyone else Hyper-Ivy had managed to chow down. 

Remington shook the saliva out of his ears. 

"Okay," he said to no one in particular. "What just happened?" 

"Good question," replied a new voice. 

Turning in surprise, the recently regurgitated Islanders regarded with some surprise the two new arrivals to the Island. 

"Sonic?" Remington asked in a bit of disbelief. Then to Geoffery, "Hey, didn't I throw you out a window?"   
  


Locke let out a sigh of relief when the Island slowly began to rise again into the clouds. 

"Now what?" he asked Sabre. 

"Now? Let's get some coffee." 

"But what about Knuckles?" 

Sabre thought for a moment, then said, "Okay, he can have some coffee too." 

"He's unconscious, father." 

"Oh? In that case, he doesn't need any coffee after all, does he?" 

To be continued in Part Four . . . 

Bombs, Toasters, Pepto Bizmol, and the Truth about Sabre's Coffee 

  



	4. Bombs, Toasters, Pepto Bizmol, and the T...

When we last left our hero, Knuckles certainly had his work cut out for him 

When we last left our hero, Knuckles certainly had his work cut out for him . . . being unconscious. Now, take a journey into the mind of the youngest Guardian of the Floating Island in :

The Double Doo-Doo Saga

Part Four:

Bombs, Toasters, Pepto Bizmol, and the Truth about Sabre's Coffee

Written by Anna-mathe with help from Clovis.

Knuckles the Echidna and related characters are property of Sega and Archie Comics.

Zorak and related characters are property of Cartoon Network.

Colonel Pepsi is property of Gloria.

Changeling is the property of my mother.

Chika is property of Clovis.

Other characters belong to me. I don't mind that you use them, as long as you let me know and

note it somewhere that I created them.

Oh, and by the way, Chika really does exist, and is every bit as terrifyingly adorable as is portrayed in this tale.

Espio once again pulled himself out of a hole. Spitting the dirt out of his mouth, he sat down and tried to figure out what the heck was going on.

"Yuck," Changeling sputtered next to him. "Hey, what just happened?"

"Well," Espio answered, "one moment, we were busy antagonizing Zorak, and then we got turned into fuzzy pink giraffes with no heads, and I vaguely remember digging this hole."

"Then POOF?"

"Yup. POOF."

"And so we're ourselves again. Yeah, I got that part. I'm talking about anything after that."

"I'm not sure. Maybe the Island collided with something?"

"Like what?"

"As if I know." Espio stood up and dusted himself off. "Let's see if the other Chaotix can explain it."

****

-----The Delirium---

Knuckles opened his eyes and sat up with a headache.

"Yo?" he asked, rubbing his head and looking around. "What the hoo-ha's goin' on around here?" He squinted. "Wherever here is, anyway." _Dang! I'm talking to myself again!_

The scene before him looking suspiciously like the surface of the Mobian Moon (which he'd seen first-hand in Issue #8) except for one distinct difference: the area was covered with scattered cornstalks and hordes of purple wombats.

_O-kay . . . I can build on this._

A wombat jumped over his head, and he figured that he'd better try to remember what had happened. And so he did. Try, that is. His memory drew a blank.

_The Emerald . . . I'm sure the Emerald fit into this mess somewhere . . . why the heck can't I remember?_

"*Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-yyyyyyyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!*" came a haunting voice somewhere to his right.

"What the-" Knuckles blurted before remembering not to talk to himself again.

"*Knuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucklllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllessssssssssssss!!!!*"

_Okay. Okay. Don't spaz out,_ Knuckles warned himself as his felt the urge to do just that. _Just because you suddenly find yourself in a cornfield in outerspace with wombats and disembodied voices who know your name . . ._

"*HEY!! Are you listening?!*"

"Yes, I'm listening!" he snapped at the voice. "What do you want?"

"*Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooone of your friggin business*!!!!"

Knuckles crossed his arms and glared defiantly at what sounded like the direction from which came the voice.

"In that case, why don't you shut up and let me think?!"

"*Thhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnkkkkkkkk!!!!*"

"I'm trying to, you creep!"

"*Creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-*"

"WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!" Knuckles shouted. 

There was a short silence.

"*Coooooooooooome tooooooooooooooooooooooo meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!*"

"No way! You are freaking me out, man!"

"*IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII can explaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain eeeeeeeeveryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyythiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinggggggggggggg!!!!*"

Sighing, Knuckles considered his options. There weren't very many of them. Another purple wombat jumped over his head, and he grudgingly began to walk toward the voice.

When Charmy woke up from the smash Hyper-Ivy had given him, it was with a lot of pain.

"Ow," he said, proving the point. Looking around, he found himself sitting in a hospital in Echidnaopolis. "What the heck? I don't get it!"

In the next bed over, Mighty also began to wake up.

"You don't get it?" he groggily asked. "Why do I feel like I stuck my hand in an electrical socket?"

"Simple," said a familiar voice. Archimedes appeared from nowhere. "You," he said, pointing to Charmy, "got smashed into a pulp, and you, " he now pointed to Mighty, "got a nice, straightforward zapping."

"Oh, well that explains everything."

"Hey, you got any Evil Plumber Tricks to get us outta _this_ one?!" Colonel Pepsi snapped at Fish as they both high-tailed it as far away from Rainbow Valley as they could run before tripping over rocks and landing in puddles.

"Evil Plumbers don't, as a rule, deal with space travel!" she hissed back at him. "Besides, I'm helpless without my mighty plunger!"

"Oh please!" Colonel Pepsi shouted. "How are you going to have your evil universally recognized if your only weapon of destruction is a toilet plunger?!?!?!?!"

"Because I _specialize_!!" she explained. "Someone like Zorak needs to have a whole arsenal of bombs and ray guns, while an Evil Plumber needs only a worthy plunger to-"

"OI! BOMBS!"

"Eh?"

"Fish, do you still have any of those plastic explosives?"

"I never go anywhere without 'em. Why?"

"So we can blow up stuff, you fool!"

"But-but-but . . . how's that going to get us off this crazy planet?!"

"I don't know! But at least we can have a little fun while Zorak recovers!"

Zorak was, during this time, moping about, complaining about everything, looking for Pepto Bizmol and chewing gum, and looking for another good rock to hide under.

Terri-lu spun around in her office chair, seething because she still didn't have any gum. 

She was in the midst of a long stream of muttered complaints when the door swung open, and Constable Remington, Sonic, Geoffery, the Hippy, and a few other ESTers that had been involved in the recent incident burst into the room.

"Oh, welcome back!" she told Remington. "How'd it go? And, uh, why is there a hippy with you?"

"This," Remington snapped, jabbing a thumb towards the Hippy, "is the guy who made us lose to Hyper-Ivy."

"Listen, I'm only trying to bring to the world a little love - "

"Oh, for goodness sakes, shut your mouth!!" Remington ordered, finally blowing up at the character.

The Hippy stood in a corner and sulked about government officials running everything.

"I don't get it," Terri-lu stated.

"We have a problem," the Constable told her.

"Danged right."

Everyone in the room turned in surprise as Espio and Changeling entered. "What's going on around here?" Espio asked.

"Apparently, Knuckles took out Hyper-Ivy, but the other plants went haywire and jumped Island!" Remington explained.

"Say what?" Terri-lu asked.

"They skidaddled, and since we're over land, now -"

"We're _what_?!" Espio gasped, interrupting Sonic.

"Yup. Your Island's a little off course," Sonic continued. "Anyway, from what we could tell, the plants are heading for Mobotropolis."

"So let's go nuke 'em!" Changeling suggested.

"Not so fast, there!" Geoffery stated, and proceeded to explain the situation of the daisy population of the city. "There's nothing we can do there until we're ready to take on a few thousand-plus hungry weeds."

A thought occurred to Espio.

"Who the heck is Hyper-Ivy?" he asked.

"Oh. Ivy ate the Master Chaos Emerald," Remington told him.

"No way!"

"Yup."

"Well, uh, where're Knuckles and the others?"

"Intensive care, with the exception of Vector."

Espio blinked, soaking it in.

"And, uh, where's Vector?"

"Who knows?" Sonic shrugged. "Last we saw him, he was mumbling something about finding some really big hedge-clippers."

"I guess these could serve as hedge-clippers," Vector decided, surveying the collection of artillery he'd scrounged up from what the plants had left in the Grand Conservatory. He had, in fact, stumbled upon the collection of portable concussive blasters which Ivy and his cohorts had missed.

"Haha," he chuckled, firing one of them up and finishing his cup of coffee. "Tonight's menu . . . Vegetable Pizza!"

Fish and Colonel Pepsi, through some twist of fate, ran SPLAT into Zorak, dropping the massive armfuls of toasters they'd been lugging along.

"Where the heck have you two been?" Zorak demanded. "And whatever you've been doing, has it been particularly evil?"

"Er, you tell 'im, Fish."

"N-no, you can have the honor, Colonel Pepsi. After all, I'm only a staff plumber."

"Yes, but, ladies first!"

"Oh, come on! You-"

"SHUT UP!!" Zorak shouted, putting an end to their ramblings. "Now . . . what exactly do neither of you want to tell me about?"

"The fact that the chameleons have dismantled the Phantom Cruiser and turned the parts into toasters," Colonel Pepsi replied, gesturing to the sprawling pile of toasters on the ground.

"They _WHAT?!?!?!_'

"This is all your fault, you know," Remington informed the Hippy. "If you hadn't shown up when you did, the plants would be gone, and Knuckles wouldn't be in a coma, so he'd be able to get the Island back on course, and the other plants would never have been able to get to the land to get help."

"That doesn't change the fact that you were wrong to want to wipe out the plants!"

"Oh, yeah, and like this situation is _right_?!?!"

The group of them, chameleons excluded, had headed to the Hall of Science to see what progress was being made in finding a way to stop the plants on a global scale. Changeling's suggestion to just nuke everything was considered, but dropped when Sonic told them what Princess Sally would likely do to them if they destroyed Mobotroplis when the reconstruction was almost completed. They now sought a more . . . neat approach.

Now, Professor Doodlemuncher came forward with his findings.

"It's really quite simple," he told them. "All you have to do is get all of the plants to jump off a very large cliff . . . "

"Um, I'm not so sure that's an option," Remington impatiently informed him.

Doodlemuncher was not daunted.

"In that case, young man, you should take this bomb," and he held up a bomb to illustrate his point, "and detonate it within the upper atmosphere. It should take them all out."

"Should?" Sonic asked pointedly. "You don't know?"

"I would know a bit more if Remington over there had tested the smaller bomb I made before."

Remington threw a very evil glance at the Hippy.

Locke and Sabre were trying desperately to get the Floating Island back on course with their links to the Master Emerald, but they weren't having much good luck.

"I think . . . that Knuckles . . . put the Emerald in crooked," Locke stated, going cross-eyed in his concentration.

"Maybe so," Sabre said, standing up and heading out of the room.

"Where are you going?" Locke called after him.

"To get some coffee."

Locke jumped to his feet.

"Oh no you don't!" he snapped. "Are you forgetting that fact it's only been two hours since you recovered from your _last_ caffeine overdose?!"

"No," he said. "But don't worry. I'll make up some fresh-"

He stopped talking because Locke threw a shoe at him.

"If you take one more step towards that door, I'm going to be forced to hurt you, father."

Sabre raised his hands in defeat.

"Anyway, what's the news on Knuckles?"

Locke sighed.

"He's still in a state of delirium. Goodness only knows when he's going to come out of it."

"Oh. Do you want your shoe back?"

"Yes, actually."

As Knuckles walked along, the scenery grew steadily weirder. The wombats slowly became sparse, and then they disappeared altogether. So did the cornstalks. In their place sprouted giant poison ivy plants and a herd of giraffes.

"*Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy have you stoooooooooooooooooooopped?*" demanded the voice.

"Because . . . because I'm starting to remember something," Knuckles stammered, grabbing at the vague memory the plants and animals prompted. "Whatever happened has something to do with . . . with poison ivy and giraffes?"

"*Coooooooooooooooommmmmme clooooooooooooooooooooooooooooser! I have your aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnsssssweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrssssssssssss!!!!*" 

"Dang it who are you?!"

"*IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII aaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmm yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyoooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmm!!!!*"

"Dream . . . am I sleeping?"

"*Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!!!!*"

"Then . . . this is just a dream? I could wake up at any time?"

"*Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!*"

"No, um, it's not a dream?"

"*Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!*"

"No it isn't not, or no it is not?"

"*Um, one of the two I'm suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure.*"

"Um, do you mean I can't wake up?"

"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssss!!!!*"

After the was said, Knuckles found himself feeling very very nervous. He still didn't know what was going on, where he was, or how on Mobius he'd gotten here, but this definitely did not seem to him to be a very good sign of things to come.

"Am I . . . dead?" he finally got the nerve to ask.

"*Nnnnooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetttttt . . . *"

"You know, you are no help at all!"

"Yyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssssssssssssssss!!!!*"

"Stop that spooky voice thing! You're giving me a headache!!"

"*What's your point, foooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool?*"

A giraffe knocked Knuckles over when he wasn't watching. Getting back up and grumbling, he again began to walk towards the voice.

Espio and Changeling had declined the invitation to join Constable Remington and the others in visiting Professor Doodlemuncher, choosing instead to hunt down the Chaotix. When they reached the hospital, Dr. Loony seemed very relieved to see them and all but threw Mighty and Charmy out the door at them.

"Hey, were you two giving them a hard time?" Espio admonished.

"Espio, I am shocked you would ask that!!" Mighty exclaimed in a hurt voice. "I mean, of COURSE we were!"

"Where's Vector?" Charmy asked.

"Good question," Changeling muttered.

"We don't know where he is, but I think he may have finally gone honestly berserk," Espio said. "But here's another question: do either of you know where they're keeping Knuckles?"

Charmy and Mighty exchanged a look.

"Um, did something happen to Knuckles?"

Vector may not have felt berserk, but he was feeling pretty good as he headed towards the Island's edge, wielding two armfuls of laser blasters with his walkman cranked to the max.

"On a Sunday, riding my bike -" he sang, turning to blast a non-sentient tree into particles. "Heh heh," he said, surveying the ash. "I could get to like this." At this point, he reached the edge of the Island and peered over. "Okay!" he shouted at the ground, miles below. "I forgot my bungee cord!" He took one last drink of coffee. Then he shrugged. "Oh well."

"For goodness sakes!" Archimedes exclaimed, watching the scene on a screen with Semper Fidelis.

"I'll get the croc, you go tell his pals that he's flipped," Semper told him.

"Fine."

Vector spotted Mobotropolis below and jumped off the Floating Island. 

Of course, the moment he was airborne, Semper materialized next to him, clinging to his walkman cord, and transported him back to Echidnaopolis where Archimedes and the other Chaotix were waiting.

"Vector, I can't believe you would do something so dumb!" Espio snapped.

The croc's reaction was to point a concussive blaster in the chameleon's face.

"YOU'RE JUST JEALOUS!!!!!!!!!" he screeched.

Espio disappeared before he got blown into smithereens.

"Calm down, Vector!" Mighty urged. "Don't disintegrate Espio! He's your friend!"

"I AM CALM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" he bellowed, now pointing a concussive blaster at Mighty, who raised his hands and took an involuntary step back. "IF I WERE ANY MORE CALM, I'D BE _DEAD!!!!!"_

That was Espio's cue to reappear behind the psychotic crocodile and whack him over the head.

"Ouch!" Vector yelped, dropping all but one blaster and rubbing his noggin. "Oh," he said, looking around. "Thanks. I needed that." Then he passed out.

"I don't get it," Charmy sighed.

"Euh, I think exposure to two Chaos Entities battling it out drove him over the edge," Semper suggested. 

"Or maybe he picked up a stray bit of chaos," Archimedes added.

"Or maybe he's just gun-happy," Espio remarked, stopping over and plucking the remaining concussive blaster from Vector's grasp. "Hmm. He might have the right idea, though. We've gotta do something about those plants, and I don't mean napalm the whole lot. We've gotta get rid of them, and fast."

"What's the rush?" Mighty asked.

Espio glared at him.

"Hello? Because they're conquering the world!!!"

"_Memo to myself_," Terri-lu typed in her computer. "_Next time plants try to conquer the world and universal-domination-bent aliens stop by, put in for a nice long vacation._"

She sighed and drank some coffee, waiting around to hear what was going to happen next, and still managing to perform her usual daily tasks. Sometimes being the Constable's secretary wasn't all it was cracked up to be. 

_Hey, wait a sec!_ she thought. _There's something strange about this coffee._ She took another sip. _Yup. There is definitely something strange about this coffee._

Frowning, she left her desk and headed for the staff lounge. Searching through some cupboards, she found what she was looking for: the coffee mix.

_Fresh stuff. Just brought in yesterday. Hmm._

A squeal behind her caught her attention. Turning, she was just in time to see two of her coworkers pass out, coffee mugs close at hand.

Terri-lu shook her head, dumped her own coffee down the drain, and went back to her desk.

"_Memo to myself: Don't drink the coffee. I think it was sentient."_

Leaning back in her chair, she searched through her desk drawers and found a candy bar. Munching contentedly, the implications of what she'd just typed all at once set in.

_Hel-lo! If those coffee beans came from sentient plants . . . that would explain why the coffee tastes a bit more succulent than usual . . . and it would explain why my two coworkers just passed out in the lounge . . . and it might explain why we've been getting so many reports of temporary insanity during the last few hours . . . _

The phone rang and knocked her out of her revelation.

"EST HQ, this is Constable Remington's office, how can I help you?" she said in a bored voice. 

"Hello, Terri-lu," came a raspy voice on the other line.

"May I ask who's calling?" she asked, taking another bite out of her candy bar.

"Do you like scary movies?"

Terri-lu spit out a mouthful of chocolate.

"Dang it! Don't even!!!" she snarled.

"I am Zorak, Lone Mantis of the Apocalypse!"

She dropped her candy.

"You!!" she snapped. "You stole all that gum!" 

"That's right!"

"What do you want?"

"I want to inform you that I and my two henchmantisses have wired enough plastic explosives through this city to turn the Floating Island into a duststorm! Hoohoohoohaha!"

Terri-lu blinked and made sure the conversation was being recorded and traced. It was.

"What do you want?" she asked again.

"We want safe passage off this planet! Your beloved chameleons have turned our space ship into _TOASTERS_!"

"Toasters . . . listen, I can forward your request, but -"

"I'll call back in two hours! If you don't have a ship for us by then, POOF!!! Hoohoohoohaha!"

"POOF?"

"Yes! POOF!!! Hoohoohoohaha!"

There was a click, and the line went dead.

The Hippy had been dumped off, and only Constable Remington, Geoffery, and Sonic returned to EST HQ. They had, in their possession, two of the bombs made by Professor Doodlemuncher and the small grenade that the Hippy's arrival had caused to not be detonated. These three bombs were liable to set off on any impact, so they were being carried with a good deal of caution, and therefore there was a good deal of upset when Terri-lu stormed out of Remington's office and almost knocked them all over.

"Terri-lu, what -" Remington began, but she cut him off.

"Zorak's wired the city to blow unless we get him off the planet in two hours!" she exclaimed.

Remington blinked.

"Zorak's . . . oh great. Terri-lu, track down the Chaotix. We're gonna need 'em for this." 

"Right!" she merrily acknowledged and streaked past them.

Remington plopped down in his chair and spun around in some circles.

"Okay," he finally said. "If anyone's gonna be able to set the mantis straight, it'll be the Chaotix . . . but their leader's still in a coma."

"Have no fear, good Constable!" Sonic assured him. "In the absence of the echidna, I see it only fitting that the hedgehog should step up to the plate - "

"We're doomed!" Geoffery moaned.

After a few minutes, Vector woke up feeling much more like his usual lovable self, ("Hey, man, I am spending TOO MUCH time unconscious in this story!") and the Chaotix considered their options.

Changeling had gone back to Rainbow Valley to check on the situation there, so it was now just the four of them, Mighty, Vector, Espio, and Charmy.

"So what do we do now?" Charmy asked, stating the obvious question. "The planet's been conquered by plants, Knuckles is in a coma, and we still have three hyper-active mantisses lurking around!"

"I wonder if the Constable and the others found any answers at the Hall of Science," Espio said.

"Let's go find out," Mighty suggested. "Meanwhile, Changeling's out to find out what's up with the mantisses in Rainbow Valley . . . "

A blue blur swept up beside them.

"No need," Sonic informed the Chaotix. "We've got a bomb to get rid of the plants, but the mantisses have lined the city with plastic explosives."

"Oh! Hang on, where did I put my concussive blaster - "

"Shut up, Vector!" Espio snapped.

Terri-lu sprinted up to them.

"Oi!" she called. "Message from headquarters! Zorak and his henchmantisses are thought to be hiding out about three miles south of here. The Constable wants you to see if you can get a hold of their detonator and . . . I dunno . . . blow it up."

"Good call! And, uh, what are you doing here?" Vector asked Sonic.

"Hey, pal, I've been put in charge of this little operation!"

Terri-lu's cellular phone chose that moment to ring.

"Yeah, now what, Constable?" she said in greeting. "Oh? Really! Well well, imagine that!" She hung up the phone. "Get this! Zorak's done it again!"

"Turned people into fuzzy pink giraffes with no heads?" Espio asked in alarm.

The secretary shook her head adamantly.

"No, silly! He's bumped off another convenience store! Still after Pepto Bizmol . . . "

Knuckles looked around him. The farther he walked, the more he seemed to almost remember what had happened.

The Voice had been silent for some time, and he could only hope he was still going in the right direction. In any case, he was now walking through a jungle of bombs, toasters, and Pepto Bizmol. Feeling closer to memory than he had yet, he again stopped walking to try and piece it all together.

_Poison Ivy, giraffes, bombs, toasters, and Pepto Bizmol. I just don't get it._

"*Keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep moooooooooooooooooooooooving!!!!*"

Knuckles had a sudden whim. He turned and plucked a bomb from a strange-looking tree and hurdled it towards the Voice.

"Take that, Preppy!" he bellowed.

The sound of the explosion wasn't a loud quick bang like he'd expected. Instead, it was low and rumbling, and seemed to shake his head apart.

"*Yooooooooooooooooooooooooouuuuu FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLL!!!!!!!!*" the Voice cried, sounding almost tearful.

The Guardian wasn't really paying much attention to the Voice now, because his head seemed to hurt more and more as the shaking from the explosion grew stronger.

"*Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit's nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot toooooooooooooooooo laaaaaaaaaaateeeeeee, Guuuuuuaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrdiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaannnnn!!!!*"

"Too late for _what_?!?!?!" Knuckles screamed as a toaster flew past him.

Everything was flying past him, being swept into a huge vortex somewhere behind him.

"*Yoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu . . . *"

Deo Volente stood glumly watching over Knuckles's unconscious body.

"Oh peachy," he muttered.

Archimedes appeared beside him.

"What's going on?" he asked.

Deo gestured to the echidna.

"His vital signs just dropped drastically."

"But-but I thought he was getting better!"

"He was! Now it's like, I dunno, a bomb blew up somewhere in his brain."

The two fireants looked nervously at Knuckles, wondering what would happen next.

"*Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!*"

Knuckles didn't stop to think. He clamped his hands to his head and ran to the Voice as fast as he could.

"*Dooooooooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnn't stoooooooooooooooooooooooooooop!!!!*"

He didn't. He just kept on running . . .

Zorak gulped down his Pepto Bizmol happily.

"Yes! I feel more like my usual evil self!" he gleefully exclaimed.

"But Zorak," Colonel Pepsi argued, "aren't you worried that perhaps an invisible chameleon will have followed the trail of Pepto Bizmol from the leaky bottle and followed us, and may in fact be watching us right now?"

"Waddya talkin' 'bout, fool? There's no one here but us evil mantisses!"

When Espio heard these words from where he was hiding in a tree watching them, he almost laughed out loud.

_Zorak, you have got to be, without a doubt, the biggest idiot I've ever tortured._

"So what's the word?" Mighty asked upon Espio's return to the group, about half a mile from the mantisses hideout.

"Zorak's got the detonator. They're keeping it heavily guarded . . . for them."

"No challenge?"

"None."

"What kind of detonator are we looking at?" Sonic asked. "I've gotta know what it looks like before I can go destroy it."

Vector raised his eyebrows.

Let me explain something. Ever since Vector woke up from his little insanity attack, he's been acting just a little bit . . . strange. In a nutshell, he was being awfully overactive . . . even for Vector. The other Chaotix tacked it up to something he ate (or maybe drank?) and let it go, concentrating on more important things.

"Okay, man," he snapped at Sonic. "I can understand that maybe the Constable wants you to call the shots until Knuckles comes out of it, but don't go forgetting you're on our turf now!"

"Hey!" Sonic snapped back. "I've been doing this sort of thing to Robotnik for years, while your approach has always been to go blow stuff up! I know what I'm doing!"

"I know what you're doing, too!" interrupted a new voice that gave the Chaotix a start. "You're leaving, that's what!"

"Excuse me?!?!" Sonic quipped sarcastically.

"Oh no. Not you," Vector grumbled, shaking his head. "Say it's not _you_!"

"Sorry, Vector! It's me!"

Charmy stepped in.

"I thought you were on vacation, Julie-su!" he exclaimed.

There she stood, in all her glory: Julie-su, former(?) henchwoman of the Dark Legion.

"I was," she admitted. "But it got all ruined by a bunch of plants."

"Well that explains it then," Espio mumbled under his breath.

"Okay, okay," Sonic said, waving his hands around for silence. "I don't quite get this, but I would like to get what you mean by saying that I'm leaving!"

"I mean that I'm takin' over this operation!" Julie-su informed him. "I've hung out with the Chaotix for quite a bit longer than you have, hedgehog!"

"Which means what, exactly?!" Sonic demanded, now beginning to seethe a bit.

"Which means I'm way more entitled to lead the Chaotix in Knuckles' absence than you are!!"

"Oooooo, you're pushin' some wrong buttons, babe!"

"You know," Mighty told the other Chaotix while Sonic and Julie-su proceeded with a very loud and obnoxious argument, "I'm getting sick of this. Those two are making so much noise, the mantisses have probably already heard 'em and blown up the city."

"Hmm." Espio regarded the situation for a moment, shrugged, and suggested, "Okay. I'm the oldest, so I'll lead."

"Fine!" Vector happily agreed. "Now let's get on with this show!"

Terri-lu entered the Hall of Science, clutching at her specimen.

"Oh, you've arrived!" Professor Doodlemuncher said by way of greeting. "Did you bring it?"

"Sure did, Professor!" she assured him. "This here's a pot of the office's coffee. There's something severely twisted about it. It tastes funny, and everyone who drinks enough of it goes berserk."

"And how did you happen to notice this?" Doodlemuncher asked her.

She squared her shoulders and said proudly, "I was a taste-tester through college. I know these things."

"Hmm. Very interesting. Well, let's just see what we've got here, eh?"

Knuckles just kept on running. When he finally got too tired to run any longer, he jumped as high into the air as he could and glided along until he got his breath back, when he began to run some more.

The voice was beginning to worry him.

"*HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! HAAAAAAA!!!!*"

"Shut up!" the Guardian gasped between breaths. "Stop laughing like that! You're making me nervous!!"

"*Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrvoooooooooooooooooooousssssss!!!! HAHA!!!!*"

At once, Knuckles felt himself slam up against an invisible brick wall.

"Oof!" he exclaimed in surprise, finding himself knocked to the ground. "What the hoo-ha?"

"*Hoo-ha! That's funny! Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunnyyyy!!!!*"

"What the . . . " Knuckles rubbed his eyes and stared through the invisible barrier at the being who stood in front of him.

It was the Voice.

The Voice.

_The Voice was a fuzzy pink giraffe with no head!!!!_

Knuckles did the only thing he could think to do. He screamed.

Midscream, a bright flash of light blinded him, and he felt a jolt run through his body. 

He finished his scream and then just sat there, panting and looking around.

"Well well! I was beginning to wonder if you were going to come out of it!" said Archimedes who was standing on a table near him.

Knuckles looked over at Archimedes and the other two ants, Deo Volente and Semper Fidelis.

"Okay, that's it. Will someone tell me _what the heck is goin' on around here?!?!?!?!"_

Mighty and Vector were hidden in the trees surrounding the mantisses hideout, watching the proceedings. Charmy was up in the sky, keeping an eye on things from there.

The plan was, Espio would get in position, then they'd make a distraction, he'd run off with the detonator, they'd pummel the mantisses, and then they'd all head back to Echidnaopolis merrily and get some donuts.

"So what happens if they can't get a ship?" Colonel Pepsi asked Zorak.

"Oh, they will. Or else their city will be leveled! Hoohoohoohaha!"

Fish was guarding the detonator, armed with a new plunger she'd swiped at the convenience store along with the Pepto Bizmol. What she didn't know was that Espio was creeping up behind her, waiting for her to move away from it just enough for him to nab the bugger without her setting it off.

"Frankly, I don't see why we didn't wire the Chameleon Valley, instead of the city," she pouted. "After all, it's they're fault we're in this mess!" She turned away from the detonator and glared at Zorak.

At that moment, Espio grabbed the detonator (which was shaped like a toaster) and split.

"What the - - - CHAMELEON!!!!!" Zorak shouted, pointing at the detonator which was quickly moving away. "AFTER HIM!!!"

"I don't think so!!" came a voice from the shrubbery.

"Huh?" Colonel Pepsi had been asking, when Vector jumped out and smashed a large hunk of wood over his head. "Oh. Ow." He fell over and landed in a puddle of Pepto Bizmol.

"Oh, not again!" Zorak yelled, not wanting to endure another slugfest. He turned in time to see Mighty hurdling through the air towards him, and quickly grabbed a toaster as a shield.

"UNGH!!" Mighty grunted, colliding with the toaster. 

Fish threw a toaster at Vector, and Colonel Pepsi crawled out of the puddle in time to hit Charmy with another one.

"So!" Zorak gloated to the stunned Chaotix. "You are now beaten with the same thing with which you thought you'd beat us! Now the tables have turned! Hoohoohoohaha! Colonel Pepsi, Fish, tie them up! The other one may have gotten away with the detonator, but now we have some new bargaining pieces! Hoohoohoohaha!"

"And furthermore - " Sonic had been snapping at Julie-su when an interruption appeared in a puff of smoke. "Oh! Knux! You're back!"

"Darn right! What's the deal with this? Where's the Chaotix?"

"They're over there . . . or maybe not," Julie-su said, noticing for the first time that the four were gone. "Hmm. That's a good question."

"There wouldn't've been a problem if you hadn't shown up when you did!" Sonic accused.

"Me? If you hadn't been here in the first place - "

"Both of you clam up!" Knuckles ordered. "I'm very cranky when I first regain consciousness! Now we've gotta figure out where they've gone, and deal with Zorak before - "

"Forget it," said Espio as he materialized next to them. "I've got the detonator," he said, handing it to Knuckles, "but Zorak's got the other Chaotix."

"Oh. Archy, take this back to Constable Remington," Knuckles told the fireant, handing the toaster-like detonator to him. "We'll go deal with Zorak and Co."

"Right!" Archimedes conceded, vanishing and taking the detonator with him.

Now Knuckles turned his attention to Sonic and Julie-su, who were facing opposite directions with sulky expressions.

"If you two don't cut it out, I'm just gonna leave you both behind."

"_WHAT_?!?!?!" they screamed.

"No way!!" Sonic snapped. "Just because Madam Dark Legion here had to throw a wrench in the works - "

"Oh shut up! You've no right to be here at all, Freedom Fighter - "

"C'mon, Espy. Let's go take down the mantisses on our own."

"Good call, Knux."

"Wait!" the two combatants yelled.

"Okay," Julie-su relented. "I'll lay off if he does."

"She started the whole thing anyway. If she shuts her yap, I'll shut mine," Sonic stated in a stalwart voice.

Knuckles and Espio exchanged an uncertain glance, then decided to let them come along.

"Hoohoohoohaha! You are my captives!" Zorak gloated to his captives. "Your job is to stay captive, and not run up the electric bill!!"

"How do you expect us to do that?" Mighty demanded.

"If you run up the electric bill, you're gonna pay it, fool!"

"He's serious!" Colonel Pepsi warned. "I should know."

Fish stood off in a corner and sneered at everyone.

"You just wait!" Charmy snapped. "Our friends will save us, and then you'll never get anymore Pepto Bizmol in your life!"

Zorak snickered. "Yeah, whatever. No one's gonna save you!"

Right then, Espio appeared in a tree and threw a toaster at Zorak's head.

"Freeze, chameleon!!" Zorak sneered, not daunted for a moment. A bit dented, yes, but not daunted. He had the situation in check. "Observe!"

Espio, cautious while his friends were in the mantis's possession, observed.

Zorak pointed the tree the three Chaotix were chained to.

"Note the large amount of toasters lining the base of the tree?"

The chameleon nodded, saying nothing.

"HOOHOOHOOHAHA!!!!" Zorak yelled. "Each one of those toasters is a bomb! And to make matters worse, Colonel Pepsi has the detonator! If you make one move to urk him, and he's very _nervous_ by nature, your pals go POOF! Hoohoohoohaha!"

"POOF?" Espio repeated, aghast.

"Yes! POOF! Hoohoohoohaha!"

Fish pointed the plunger she'd bumped off from that last convenience store at Espio's head.

"So we recommend you get your chameleonic buns down here and surrender before we blow these three into the next time zone!"

The three mantisses were so rapt in glaring at Espio that they didn't notice the grappling hook shoot through the air and grab onto one of the higher treetops.

"O-okay!" Espio stammered, raising his hands to indicate defeat. "Just don't blow up my friends!"

Mighty, Charmy, and Vector looked at him like he was nuts.

"So, you see reason at last, do you, you snippy little chameleon?" Zorak observed. "Good! Get down here, before - "

He never finished his sentence, because at that moment, a blue blur shot through the air and swept up all the toasters surrounding the captive Chaotix. Simultaneously, a pink figure swung through the trees and grabbed the detonator from Colonel Pepsi, and a flash of red came up behind Fish and swiped her plunger. Espio, once free from the plunger's glare, leaped from the tree and knocked Zorak to the ground.

"Woo-hoo!" Vector whooped. "We're home free, now!"

"Yes!" Julie-su shouted from the treetop she'd landed in.

At that moment, the tree-branch she was standing on snapped, and she plummeted to the ground. After making a painful-sounding splatter, she just sorta sat there as Colonel Pepsi jumped over to her, grabbed, the detonator, and hit the "BLAST" button.

As you should remember, Sonic was now holding the bombs, so when they went off, the force of the explosion hurtled him through the air and accidentally flattened Knuckles, who, startled, released his hold on the plunger, which was quickly reclaimed by Fish, who swung it like a golf club at Espio, dislodging him from Zorak's throat and flattening him also.

"Uh . . . uh . . . " Zorak sputtered, coughing. "Well! We sure showed them! Chain 'em up, Colonel Pepsi!"

"You got it, Zorak!"

"Maybe we should join a union," Mighty sighed to Vector and Charmy, who grimly agreed.

Okay, dear reader, this does indeed look bad for the Chaotix and Company. However, Fate does not hate them as much as it may seem to at this moment, as you will see.

Having checked in at home, Changeling had been trying to find Espio for some time, and had eventually caught up with him just before they made their raid on the mantis hideout. Now, after watching the proceedings of that raid and the results, he set back for Rainbow Valley, suddenly realizing that there was only one way they could stop these mantisses. 

This required a move on the part of the chameleons that had never been seen in his lifetime, or that of anyone else on the Island, for that matter. The power that had to be called upon had been left at rest for hundreds of years, since before the establishment of the Guardians, and then some. Many times, over the centuries, such an action had been considered, but never actually put to use. Now, however . . .

He reached Rainbow Valley and filled everyone in on what had happened.

"Jeez," Shift mumbled. "How could anyone so dumb as those mantisses capture them all?"

"Fate," Shadow sighed. "Man, I tell ya, Fate is really hating us about now."

"What can we do?" Shift asked no one in particular.

Changeling cleared his throat.

"Guys, you know there's only one being who can save us."

Shadow gasped and Shift clamped his hands over his mouth.

"You mean - "

"Yes," Changeling replied with firm resolution. "We need to summon . . . 

**__**

CHIKA THE MALEVOLENT!

"No!!" Shift cried. "Not . . . 

**__**

CHIKA THE MALEVOLENT!

"Yes!" Changeling replied. "Yes . . .

**__**

CHIKA THE MALEVOLENT!

Shadow looked confused.

"Chika the Malevolent?"

"No, you fool!" Changeling snapped. "No . . . 

**__**

CHIKA THE MALEVOLENT!

"Oh," Shadow mumbled. "How do we summon . . . 

**__**

CHIKA THE MALEVOLENT

?"

"We must consult the Valley Elders," Shift grimly stated.

Half an hour later, the three chameleons approached the mantis hideout.

They exchanged a look.

"Ready, guys?" Shadow asked in a solemn voice.

"As we'll ever be," they replied in an equally solemn voice.

"So then," Shift said, cracking his knuckles, "let's do it."

They then trompsed right into the middle of the not-so-well-hidden hideout and confronted Zorak and his henchmantisses head on.

The mantisses were so startled to see them just tromps in like that, that they just stood and gaped at them.

"Zorak," Shadow greeted simply.

"What?" he answered in a dark tone.

"We_ suggest_ that you release our friends," Shift suggested, "or else."

"Or else what?" Zorak inquired.

"Or else . . . we'll be forced to use . . . _this_!" Changeling warned, producing the ancient and powerful artifact he'd been entrusted with for this mission.

It was indeed a heartstopping sight: a small ball, about one inch in diameter, with a tiny . . . _bell_ in it.

Zorak looked at it and shuddered. Then he broke up laughing.

"Whaddya talkin' 'bout, fool?!" he chortled. "You expect to defeat us with that stupid ball?"

"N-no, listen, Zorak," Shift urged. "For your own good, just let our friends go."

"Hoohoohoohaha!" Zorak bellowed. "If anything, you'll beat us today, because I'm laughing so hard that my gizzard could explode at any moment."

"Zorak," Shadow said in a low, dark, tone, "this is your last chance. Let our friends go, or else we'll be forced to use that thing."

"Go ahead!" Zorak giggled. "In fact, I _DARE_ you! Gimme your best shot with that little ball with bell!"

"No!" Espio called frantically from where he was tied up, earning himself some very strange expressions from the other Chaotix. "Don't do it, guys! No one deserves that!!!"

Zorak glared at him.

"Don't think you can fool me so easily! I'm not letting anyone go free today, including _you_ three!" he shouted, pointing at the three chameleons in question.

Shadow sighed in resignation.

"You heard him, Changeling. Do it."

Changeling was so choked up with the magnitude of what he was about to do that he couldn't say a word. Silently, he took the small ball with the tiny bell and rolled it across the ground. It came to a grinding halt at the feet of the three mantisses.

"Here goes," Shift mumbled. He cleared his throat. "Here, Chika!"

BANG!!!!

The sky shattered!

A huge clap of thunder shook the world, and the very land beneath them trembled as the malevolent force awakened.

"What the hoo-ha?" Zorak exclaimed, looking up into the black clouds above.

The clouds parted all at once, and a dark blur shot down from the heavens . . . 

And landed daintily on the ground!

When Zorak finally worked up the nerve to uncover his eyes, it was to the horrifying sight of . . .

A terrifyingly adorable little black kitten, batting the ball with bell around in a terrifyingly adorable manner!

"No - " he choked, taking an involuntary step back. "no . . . I've seen this form of power only once before, in all my travels of the universe! This . . . malevolent creature . . . it possesses the power of terrifyingly adorable cuteness . . . to the magnitude where it could destroy the universe as we know it!"

The three chameleons looking on had run for the nearby shrubberies, taking refuge from the force at work. Espio passed out with fear and awe, while the others just sat there, trying to figure out what the heck was going on.

"Colonel Pepsi! Fish! Run! Run for the suburbs!" Zorak yelled. "Bail, while you still can! Don't just gawk like that, you fools!"

They continued gawking.

"But, Zorak," Fish murmured, "she's so . . . cute! Can we keep her?"

"No, no, you idiot! She has you in her terrible power! Fight it, Fish, fight it!"

"Gee, Zorak, lay off!" Colonel Pepsi objected. "She's just a terrifyingly adorable cute little kitten! Let's just stand here and observe her playful ways."

"No! No! Oh, my poor henchmantisses! You're forever doomed to her cuteness!"

Chika looked up and batted at a passing butterfly.

"NNOOOOO!" Zorak screamed. "You can't defeat me! I'll fight you! You . . . 

**__**

CHIKA THE MALEVOLENT

" - shall not overcome Zorak, Lone Mantis of the Apocalypse!"

Chika turned towards him and fluttered an ear.

"Meow?" she mewed in a plaintive tone that made everyone watching's heart melt.

Everyone except Zorak.

"No, you ancient power of terrifyingly adorable cuteness! It'll take more than your cutest to overwhelm Zorak, Lone Manti - . . . what? What are you doing?"

Chika had abandoned her little ball and scampered over to the one-antennaed mantis. Looking up at him trustingly, she, with one swift, fluid motion, _lunged at his chest, baring her claws and - . . . _ climbed up to his shoulder, where she curled up and went to sleep, purring in his ear.

" - no . . . " Zorak whispered. "No . . . no, I can fight you . . . I can . . . oh, dang it all to heck and back. How did I not notice what a cute little kitty you are! Come here, I'll get you a saucer of milk."

And so, the three mantisses and the tiny, malevolent ball of terrifyingly adorable cuteness scuttled off into the sunset, and they lived happily ever after.

"I don't get it," Knuckles grumbled. "How did that kitten just defeat Zorak?"

Espio, who was still trying to regain his senses fully, replied, "That was . . .

**__**

CHIKA THE MALEVOLENT 

" - the single most powerful being to ever roam the planet Mobius. Her powers of terrifyingly adorable cuteness will twist and conquer any evil hearts to her sweet, benevolent, and yet somewhat evil ways."

"Oh, no," Julie-su retorted. "She's just a cute little kitten. Can I keep her, Knux?"

**__**

"Oh no!" Knuckles cried. "She's under the spell of . . . 

**__**

CHIKA THE MALEVOLENT

"Dang, Vector!" Mighty mused. "You were right all along. Julie-su really_ is_ evil!"

"Well well," Vector mumbled. "That really was one cute cat." He looked at the alarmed glares of the other Chaotix. "Just kidding. I hate cats."

From over the horizon came a loud growl.

Vector now looked alarmed.

"Sorry, Your Malevolence!" he called.

A contented purr reached them, and that was the last any of them ever heard of . . . 

**__**

CHIKA THE MALEVOLENT

Changeling strode over and reclaimed the little ball with the bell.

"To be saved for another case of dire emergency," he informed the others.

**__**

Sabre rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

"Locke . . . was that . . . "

Locke didn't blink, just sat there, watching the screen.

"Yes," he replied. "That was . . . an ancient power of terrifyingly adorable cuteness . . . at work here on the Floating Island . . . "

The two of them stared at the screen for a few moments longer, then fell to their knees.

"We're not worthy!!"

"We're not worthy!!"

"We're scum!!"

"We _suck_!!"

Terri-lu was confirming matters with Professor Doodlemuncher about the coffee when the Chaotix, Knuckles, Sonic, and the other three chameleons all stormed into the Hall of Science.

"Glad you're here!" Doodlemuncher greeted before any of them could say a word. "We've discovered something very interesting here."

Knuckles blinked.

"How interesting?"

Terri-lu jammed a cup of coffee under his nose.

"This stuff is what has been making people act strangely all over the Island!"

"No way!" Vector denied. "It's just coffee!"

Before anyone could stop him, he grabbed the cup from Terri-lu and chugged it down.

"YOU FOOL!!!" Doodlemuncher yelled. "Now you're gonna go crazy again!!"

Vector feigned offense.

"I'm not crazy!" he denied. "I prefer the phrase . . . _mentally impaired!!_ HAHAHAHAHA!"

Then he turned tail and bailed, saying something about finding a chainsaw.

"Chainsaw?" Shift murmured. He and Shadow exchanged a glance, then took off after him. "HEY! WE WANNA SEE THE CHAINSAW!!! COME BACK!!!!!!!!"

Mighty scratched his head, and Espio pretended he didn't know them.

"So what's the deal with the coffee?" Sonic asked.

Doodlemuncher wiped off his glasses.

"Terri-lu discovered that the coffee beans were sentient."

"No way!" Charmy exclaimed. "You mean people all over the city have been _drinking sentient life_?!"

"Yup."

"Eewwwwww!" groaned the Chaotix, exchanging expressions of disgust.

"Okay, we all agree that's pretty gross, but what's the big deal?" Sonic pressed, thinking about Mobotropolis overrun with all those plants.

"Well," Doodlemuncher explained, "taking this into consideration, Terri-lu got the Constable to hunt down some living beans and interrogate them."

"You interrogated . . . beans?" Knuckles repeated in disbelief.

"Sure did!" Terri-lu sang, "Under pain of torture! Never heard beans squeal so fast before!"

"Under pain of torture?!" Mighty nervously asked.

"Of course!" The secretary was enjoying this tale far too much. "See, unless they spilled the beans - no pun intended - we'd make 'em drink their non-sentient cousins!" She looked at the horrified glares of her audience. "What?"

Knuckles shook his head.

"We can argue about ethics later. What did you find out?"

"That there is only one way to get rid of the plants without killing them all and getting the world population of hippies on our backs," Doodlemuncher answered. "And that is through their stomachs."

"Got that right," the young echidna had to agree. "They do have extreme appetites."

"So what can we do?" Sonic asked.

"Simple. Get them all to jump off a large cliff - "

"For real, Doodlemuncher!" Espio snapped.

"All right, all right! Kids these days . . . we lure them all into a space ship and shoot them to another planet, where they can wreak their havoc somewhere else."

"Basically, we dump our problem on someone else," Terri-lu explained.

"And uh, whatever happened to those bombs you made?" Sonic asked Doodlemuncher.

"The bombs? We're keeping them to wipe out anyone who refuses to leave."

"Great," Knuckles mumbled under his breath. "Our society . . . "

"Don't worry, Knux," Espio reassured him. "We can always blame any inhumane acts of the government, just like everyone else."

"Hey!!" Terri-lu snapped.

"One problem," Constable Remington pointed out after Terri-lu had explained everything to him. "We don't have a spaceship.""No problem there," Geoffery declared.

Everyone turned to regard him with surprise and awe.

"You see, I have my very own personal space craft standing by. Secret Service Standard Issue," he added with a wink.

"Ooooo-kay . . . " Knuckles drawled out with an incredulous expression. "Fine. We have a ship and we have the plants congregated mainly in Mobotropolis. Now the question is: how do we get them from Mobotropolis to Geoff's standard issue space ship?"

"Doodlemuncher said the key was through their appetites," Sonic pointed out. "So we just need to bait it. Now, what . . . or should I say . . . _who_ have the plants seemed more intent on chomping than anyone else?"

Slowly and yet simultaneously, everyone turned to regard the person in question.

Geoffery realized with a sinking feeling that everyone was looking at _him_.

"H-hey, guys, now, uh, you, uh, wouldn't, uh, want me to, uh . . . "

Remington clouted him on the back.

"For king and country, right, you little Secret Service twerp?"

Glowering, Geoffery grumbled something incoherent and jumped out of a window.

"Notify the king," Remington told Sonic. "Tell him that the moment we catch that dude, we're gonna rid the world of the sentient plants!"

"And about time, too," the hedgehog stated. "While we're on the subject, do you plan on doing anything about those Brobdingnagian Fungi?"

"I can't believe I'm doing this. I can't believe I let those Island creeps talk me into this. This is so embarrassing . . . "

This was the course of Geoffery's ramblings as he was lowered by a rope around his waist down to the doorway of his vast space craft - Secret Service Standard Issue model, of course, for all that it was actually big enough to house over a thousand sentient plants.

"Okay," Remington said to the hippy, who had returned to haunt them. "Does this make you happy? Maybe, just maybe, they'll find a home . . . somewhere . . . out there . . . "

The hippy sniffled and burst into tears.

"That is so beautiful!" he sobbed. "Yes, yes, a better solution could never have been found!" Then he left.

"YES!" Remington whooped. "He's gone! Now let's get down to business!"

"We just need to wait for one of the plants to notice him," Knuckles decided. "Then the rest of 'em'll probably charge in like a raving horde."

"Woah! Raving horde!" Vector exclaimed in joyful anticipation, still suffering from the effects of that coffee.

Remington, Knuckles, Sonic, the Chaotix, Shadow, Shift, and Changeling were all leaning over the edge of the Island, waiting to pull Geoffery out at just the right moment.

"Look!" Charmy shouted, pointing.

A strawberry had come up to Geoffery, and was sniffing at his shoes.

"There!" Mighty yelled, pointing as a raging horde of sentient plants all charged at the Secret Service Agent.

"Dang!" Vector drawled, wrinkling his nose as the carnage began. "Shouldn't we pull him out?"

"Not just yet," Remington retorted. "We want to get all the plants in there that we can."

The raging horde continued, but eventually Geoffery was pulled back to the relative safety of the Floating Island.

"_You_," he scowled, pointing at Remington. "Why did you leave me down there for so long? Look at me!!"

Indeed, the skunk had been chewed at drastically, and looked like it.

Remington shrugged.

"All in the interests of the world," he airily replied.

Geoffery gave one last scowl and stormed away, leaving Remington and Sonic to burst out laughing.

"Here goes!" Knuckles warned, holding the launch control pad for the space craft.

"Go for it, Knuckles," Espio encouraged. "This whole adventure has gone on for far too long."

"Yeah, man, do it before I get knocked out again!" Vector exclaimed.

"Do it before the plants escape!" Charmy urged.

"Do it before that hippy changes his mind!" Remington almost begged.

"Do it before I get bored," Sonic ordered.

"Do it before we bring back . . .

**__**

CHIKA THE MALEVOLENT

" - !!!!!" snapped the three chameleons.

Knuckles grinned and pushed the button.

The ten of them stood on the edge of the Floating Island and watched the plants disappear into outer space, never to trouble their world again.

"Wow," Sabre sniffled. "I just love happy endings."

"Oh, go and get some coffee," Locke grumbled. He wasn't very good at happy endings.

Archimedes, Semper Fidelis, and Deo Volente laughed.

Terri-lu watched the scene on T.V. with Professor Doodlemuncher, and then the two of them went out to buy some chewing gum.

**__**

Zorak, Colonel Pepsi, Fish, and Julie-su were eventually released from the power of . . .

**__**

CHIKA THE MALEVOLENT

But that's another story.

The End

Or is it?

Oooooooooo . . .

****

-----Epilogue-----

The plants landed on a strange, distant planet. When they emerged from the Secret Service Standard Issue Spacecraft, though, it was to the sight of . . .

_A fuzzy pink giraffe with no head!!_

"Hold still," ordered a mantis who was pointing a strange-looking gun at it, and then fired.

The fuzzy pink giraffe with no head popped back up into . . .

"SPAAAAAAAAAAACE GHOOOOOOOOOOST!! Yay! I'm back, and ready to crush evil as it approaches!"

"Oh, shut up," snapped the mantis.

Then they both turned and saw the thousand plus sentient plants glaring at them hungrily.

"Euh . . . why are you looking at us like that?"

Willow glanced at the other plants and winked.


End file.
